I've never understood the Hylian Shield being treated as something special, but I'm an old school kinda guy. To me, Link has historically had one really high level shield. It's the Mirror Shield. Games without the Mirror Shield lack a notable shield, and that's just how it is. When you consider that the real test of a shield's power is its ability to resist a Like Like's gut and only the Mirror Shield ever accomplishes this (well, the weaker shield in z1 too but that's kinda different), I think the case is clear; Hylian Shield is not a shield that should be held in any particular regard. If anything, how durable it was in BotW was strange; it should have been much easier to break.
As per items in Smash in general, I'll just be straight. The better I've gotten at Smash, the more intolerable I've found playing with items in general. Honestly I think items just make an across the board awful experience. It's not just that items are insanely powerful and insanely random, though they are and that's really unpleasant to deal with too, but the main reason items aren't fun is that they mostly serve to make all of the characters the same. A character's unique attacks all pretty much suck compared to the overwhelming power of item moves; if you're playing with items, the obvious best strategy is to just run around and focus on using items as much as possible which means the only character specific attributes you care about are mobility, recovery, weight, and I guess having a reflector which is just not a lot going on as you quickly realize Fox is the obvious best character in an items on environment but it also barely matters because every character plays roughly the same. Even if you're really bad at Smash, I just don't see how items are improving your experience; sure you might lose less with items on because they're so random that anyone could get lucky and win, but at least you'll be making decisions that matter and doing different things if you pick different characters instead of basically every game being the same relatively mediocre RNG fest no matter what which is basically the items on meta. That is to say that items not only make the game dumb competitively, but honestly, I don't think they're fun at all and in fact are the single biggest anti-fun option in the game. It's not a topic I think a lot about most of the time because items are just always off and it's not a question, but the pre-release of every Smash game reminds me of why I dislike items and usually makes me like them even less than I did before as I watch them just sap not just the strategy and skill but honestly also the joy from so many pre-release matches.
As per items in Smash in general, I'll just be straight. The better I've gotten at Smash, the more intolerable I've found playing with items in general. Honestly I think items just make an across the board awful experience. It's not just that items are insanely powerful and insanely random, though they are and that's really unpleasant to deal with too, but the main reason items aren't fun is that they mostly serve to make all of the characters the same. A character's unique attacks all pretty much suck compared to the overwhelming power of item moves; if you're playing with items, the obvious best strategy is to just run around and focus on using items as much as possible which means the only character specific attributes you care about are mobility, recovery, weight, and I guess having a reflector which is just not a lot going on as you quickly realize Fox is the obvious best character in an items on environment but it also barely matters because every character plays roughly the same. Even if you're really bad at Smash, I just don't see how items are improving your experience; sure you might lose less with items on because they're so random that anyone could get lucky and win, but at least you'll be making decisions that matter and doing different things if you pick different characters instead of basically every game being the same relatively mediocre RNG fest no matter what which is basically the items on meta. That is to say that items not only make the game dumb competitively, but honestly, I don't think they're fun at all and in fact are the single biggest anti-fun option in the game. It's not a topic I think a lot about most of the time because items are just always off and it's not a question, but the pre-release of every Smash game reminds me of why I dislike items and usually makes me like them even less than I did before as I watch them just sap not just the strategy and skill but honestly also the joy from so many pre-release matches.
