OK I wanna go on a little rant here and pick apart RelaxAlax's video of Smash 4, which I saw last night and absolutely HATE.
"Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is, in one word, underwhelming."
H O W? Smash 4 has a substantial amount of content, has great stages, great music, and great characters (THE LATTER TWO OF WHICH YOU AGREED WITH).
You want underwhelming? Go play Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I'd explain how it is underwhelming but... it really goes without saying honestly.
"I had so much fun playing 8-Player Smash with a huge group of people."
OK sure, you had fun with 8-Player Smash. It was a bit too chaotic for my tastes, but alright. But why are you showing footage of you playing with CPU-controlled opponents? Kinda goes against your point there.
"None of these [single-player] modes offer up anything that's all that different."
OK so all of the single-player modes feel like they're the same, being nothing but "Multi-Man Melee" as you describe it. That's fair.
But that was the case for all Smash games, buddy. In all games, every single-player mode has you beating up opponents. Classic, Adventure, All-Star, Event Matches (95% of the time at least), doesn't matter. They all have a focus on that. The only mode I think offered anything new was the Subspace Emissary in Brawl which, while I liked it, had its own slew of issues, and still a good chunk of it was 1-v-1 combat. To an extent, Melee's Adventure Mode offered something different as well, having some platforming-focused stages, but then again they took up only about 1/3 of the mode. The rest were, again, about beating up opponents.
So the modes were downgraded from their previous incarnations. Alright, I'll give you that. But you can't pin that on reasons that the rest of the games "suffer" from as well, especially when you go out of your way to praise them.
"[...]and there's Smash 4. I mean, you collect, like, under 10 characters through several modes that you can do very quickly, and then anything else is just Custom Moves, and Trophies."
Alright, so unlockables are toned down a bit for this game. I'll say that, while I did like how unlockable characters required you to work for them, so you get a sense of progression and accomplishment, and would definitely like for that to come back, I do realize that how Smash 4 handled its unlockables is the objective best way to do it. My dream game would see Melee- or Brawl-style unlockables, but with a cheat code that allows players to unlock all characters from the beginning, as in that case everyone wins, but I digress.
It's 2018. Key features like characters don't get locked away like that anymore.
"[...]everything about this game comes back to Sakurai not making a competitive fighter, so its platform-fighter roots, ruin the 1-v-1 experience. To me. I will emphasize that. It's for me."
I'll say this, it's completely fair to say that Smash 4 doesn't have a good 1-v-1 experience, as that's subjective. I personally don't agree, but whatever. But you can't pin that on Smash's origins as a platform-fighter when you go out of your way to emphasize how better Melee and Brawl were when they virtually share the same "issue" as well. That's not how arguments work.
"This Smash game is often cited as one of the most balanced. But the only reason I think that is, is because, all characters on the roster lack any really powerful tools. To me, what it looks like is, none of these characters are anything remarkable, it's just that they're all equally bad."
With the issue being...........................? I mean sure, maybe all the characters are weaker than in previous games (which they aren't, everyone except Dedede, Falco, Jigglypuff, Meta Knight, and Zelda got a good balance of buffs and nerfs, give or take a few), but if they're all equally balanced and, above all, cleverly-designed and fun to play as, I see no issue with that.
"Maybe it's the sound effects, maybe it's the visual effects, but when you hit someone hard in this game, it just doesn't feel like it. I don't get the satisfaction."
Well no **** the attacks don't feel like they have any weight to them, because all you have in the footage are jabs and neutral aerials. What about smash attacks? A good amount of special attacks? That little red flash thing that signifies "Oh, you KO'ed someone, almost guaranteed!"? Hell, you show these off in Melee, and it was the exact same case there too!
"High percent? That makes you stronger! On and if you're off the stage, let's just get you right back up there young man! Is this the Canada of fighting games?"
I don't really have a comment on this. I just think he tried to be funny here and failed miserably, but hey, that's subjective, maybe you thought it was funny, I didn't, but whatever, moving on:
"If it's this unsatisfying in 1-v-1, I may as play it where it is fun, in 8-Player Smash, with Items- THAT WAS THE POINT WASN'T IT?"
Yes. It's always been the point. Smash has always been made to be a casual, party game. And yeah, Smash 4 catered to the competitive scene with its redone physics and removal of random tripping, as well as Omega stages, but the series is, at its core, a game that is made to be played with friends. I also fail to see how the 1-v-1 experience is unsatisfying. I've played multiple 1-v-1 matches online, and it's some of the most fun I've had.
And I know I'm going into a bit of a rant within a rant (rantception???), but here's my take: if you look at Super Smash Bros. through a completely competitive standpoint, you're looking at it wrong. Like, so wrong. It's for this reason that I can't stand how SmashWiki is written through an almost exclusive competitive eye. Sure, I know why it's written like that, because it's made by competitive Smash players, but that still doesn't change the fact that isn't how all players see the game. Hell, I'd be willing to bet they're actually in the minority.
And no, I'm not knocking you if you play competitively, you do you, these are just my thoughts.
I know that this is completely unrelated to Smash 5 predictions but... GOD this review made me so angry with how poorly RelaxAlax made his points and like, I just wanted to vent it out, yknow? Really the only decent things he brought up were Smash Tour, which I agree sucks, and I guess to an extent Rage and the new ledge mechanics, which I don't really mind at all.
Best part of the whole video was when he opened up his box of good points, and it was empty.
The irony.
Anyways that ends my mini-rant, carry on please.