Unpopular Smash Opinions (BE CIVIL)

[UserKev]

The purpose is not to get any Zelda character, but a character that you like, which usually means from a series that you like. I really don't like Twilight Princess and I think Midna is a very shallow character, so I have no reason to "rally behind her", even though I love Zelda in general.

Fan rally tribalism challenge shouldn't determine who is prioritized. Just need to establish a core interest. This is probably why a unique Zelda newcomer will likely never come to be since there is more divide.

Zelda speculation is one of the most unfun, pointless and frustrating. You could enter a lottery power ball with more luck.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Fan rally tribalism challenge shouldn't determine who is prioritized. Just need to establish a core interest. This is probably why a unique Zelda newcomer will likely never come to be since there is more divide.

Zelda speculation is one of the most unfun, pointless and frustrating. You could enter a lottery power ball with more luck.

Funny you guys are talking about Zelda newcomers.

When I made my big first party poll this year, I found we don't have a Zelda frontrunner.

We have three roughly equal in popularity Zelda characters. Skull Kid, Impa and Midna were all within twenty votes of each other.

 

[Louie G.]

I still heavily disagree with the sentiment that a lack of rallying behind one single character cannibalizes them all. This wasn’t even particularly true for K. Rool who is often used as an example, Dixie Kong support was still nearly as visible.

What is demonstrated by the Zelda deadlock is people want someone from Zelda, in general. It would be ridiculous for the team to look at this and shrug saying “well, people want them all too much. If one of them was popular and the other two weren’t, maybe we would add them”. Like no, they’ll just add whoever they think is most compelling.

It’s possible that this did have a negative effect on Ballot results, but those are ten years old now. Zelda has grown exponentially and tides have shifted upon the inclusion of a few other characters… I feel like Skull Kid support went up once Ridley and K. Rool were here, for example. But one way or another I think it would be pretty terrible if a decade old list of characters was the only way they judged fan demand.

…and yeah, feeling pressured to back one character as a means of checking off a list instead of vouching for who you actually want is lame. I wish we had done this for a series like Rhythm Heaven that may hinge on it a bit more, but even there I’m not gonna give everyone crap for not getting behind a concept as abstract as Chorus Kids.

 

[Among Waddle Dees]

Fan rally tribalism challenge shouldn't determine who is prioritized. Just need to establish a core interest. This is probably why a unique Zelda newcomer will likely never come to be since there is more divide.

I'm sorry, but I heavily draw the line at coining "tribalism" for discussion around franchise candidates. Shouldn't the fact that we have a common interest in a franchise getting some new character be enough to go off of? For as much as I hear about tribalism in Smash discussion, I ironically seem to find more accurate contenders of that term when there's a specific character seen as the top-runner, eclipsing anything else. I find it difficult to support this, especially since the larger franchises don't suffer from such impositions, even with their equally glaring omissions.

Also, is there actually an example of such a restrictive view on which character gets in paying off in Ultimate? Ridley might be a contender, but his chances didn't seem all that likely before he appeared. K. Rool was contending with requests for Dixie during most of his campaign, which left Dixie with nothing. Isabelle had some perceived priority but wasn't immediately pushed. Beyond that, the only real examples I can think of are from new franchises. But those are just colloquially agreed to need the main character first, and even Sakurai knows this.

 

[Louie G.]

But those are just colloquially agreed to need the main character first, and even Sakurai knows this.

And funny enough, in the case of ARMS and Xenoblade 2 this was subverted from fan expectation / demand in favor of what would be most practical and fun.

We can split hairs about why this was the case - would Spring Man have been the move if he wasn’t an AT? And Rex & Pyra was the initial concept, so Rex may have made it regardless. But to the point of this comparison, Ultimate didn’t restrict itself based on simply what people most prominently asked for. Instead in these cases kind of gave people something they didn’t know was on the table. I remember years back I vouched for Pyra without Rex and I was told off for it lol.

More and more that’s what I think will happen with whoever they pick for Zelda, but we’ll see.

Ridley might be a contender, but his chances didn't seem all that likely before he appeared.

I feel like Metroid is a special case where Ridley was one of the only characters fans saw as well… a real “character” worth adding in the first place. In a post Plant world maybe more people are open to Mother Brain or the Metroid itself but Ridley is easily the most firmly planted and realized character in the Metroid series beyond Samus (that’s why she was added twice, lol).

Dark Samus support was around here or there… and well, that manifested in Ultimate too, so there you go. In all this talk of Raven Beak or Sylux it’s funny to reflect on how limited the scope of Metroid discussion used to be.

 

[SharkLord]

Funny you guys are talking about Zelda newcomers.

When I made my big first party poll this year, I found we don't have a Zelda frontrunner.

We have three roughly equal in popularity Zelda characters. Skull Kid, Impa and Midna were all within twenty votes of each other.

To be fair, you mentioned you got turrned down by the Zelda subreddit, right? I wonder how much things would've changed if we got all the dedicated Zelda fans on board. I distinctly remember Anna dropped like a rock once the poll hit the FE subreddit, for instance.

 

[fogbadge]

To be fair, you mentioned you got turrned down by the Zelda subreddit, right? I wonder how much things would've changed if we got all the dedicated Zelda fans on board. I distinctly remember Anna dropped like a rock once the poll hit the FE subreddit, for instance.

hey I voted and I'm the biggest zelda fan going

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

64 and Melee's credits are better than the later games, but NOT because of the shooting - in fact, I'd argue the shooting is the main thing going against them and Brawl had the right idea of making the fictional cast roll interactive while the actual credits aren't - rather I think 64 and Melee's credits are mostly good because of the sheer amount of detail they give in relation to each dev's role, but I don't think any kind of gaming skill should've been necessary to view that information (which is also how I feel about ending-locked credits), especially in the case of Melee which had a legitimate shooting gallery with unpredictable targets.

It also really sucks that you can't properly skip any of the Smash classic mode credits, there's no real purpose for that, the fast forward makes the text unreadable and to my knowledge they've never been de-skippable so the "no, look, it's actually a minigame!" aspect isn't all too practical.

 

[UserKev]

Sunshine Peach alt would change things. I rarely see this brought up and an urge in me cannot help but be underwhelmed.

Alt customs in Smash is the biggest joke.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

If Nintendo were remotely compotent with UGC, that would probably be the best possible future for Smash, but looking at both stays up and goes down on Nintendo's UGC services as is... uhh yeah, let's leave that a fun dream.

 

[Champion of Hyrule]

I’ll never understand people wanting Chosen Undead from Dark Souls in Smash when Soul of Cinder exists.

Chosen Undead is a generic customizable character who doesn’t have one set design or play style. Soul of Cinder is an iconic boss and character (with a set design) who, because of the lore of the series, can do literally anything Chosen Undead can and it actually makes sense to have him pull it all out randomly. He has Gwyn’s moves too who is a solid candidate as well.

I guess the character wasn’t on a Nintendo console but I never personally thought that was a necessary rule. I would prefer Artorias too but that’s another discussion.

 

[SharkLord]

I’ll never understand people wanting Chosen Undead from Dark Souls in Smash when Soul of Cinder exists.

Chosen Undead is a generic customizable character who doesn’t have one set design or play style. Soul of Cinder is an iconic boss and character (with a set design) who, because of the lore of the series, can do literally anything Chosen Undead can and it actually makes sense to have him pull it all out randomly. He has Gwyn’s moves too who is a solid candidate as well.

I guess the character wasn’t on a Nintendo console but I never personally thought that was a necessary rule. I would prefer Artorias too but that’s another discussion.

I'd imagine people defer to the player avatars because that's how you experience the gameplay of Dark Souls, more than anything else. I'm not too well-versed on Dark Souls stuff, but to my knowledge, the combat is built around the player being slow and easily killed, so you really need to know when to heal, dodge, and parry to avoid getting walloped, and sneak in some attacks when you can. I'm sure you can develop a more offensive build, but that seems to be the general game plan. Naturally, the Chosen Undead would carry that over, so I'd imagine a lot of fans would want the CU to represent that gameplay.

The Soul of Cinder, on the other hand - that's the final boss of DS3, right? From a bit of cursory research, it seems they're much faster, stronger, and tankier than any player characters, on top of having a boatload of powerful magical attacks and melee weapons. That paints a completely different picture to the defensive playstyle of the Chosen Undead, or any other DS player character. A lot of people like to see a game's gameplay represented in Smash, so a fast, aggressive boss wouldn't represent that as well as the guy you actually play as.

That's my theory, at least. Like I said, I'm not a big Dark Souls guy so I might be wrong. If there's any other DS fans here to clarify that'd be nice

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

Continuing off of this:

This was just gonna be about Wario, but I think I should say it as a whole, but with an emphasis on Wario: Smash fans have a strange habit of prioritising faithfulness that only truly functions diegetically as a reward, over uniqueness that can be appreciated in a vacuum.

You know what Pac-Man's moveset would be based on World?

You know what Wario's moveset would be based on Land?

Those moves work in the source material because they're tried and tested platforming abilities, functionally sound cliches supplemented by creative use cases, but when you've got double-digit playable characters with fully unique powers, in a game where every stage and opponent is designed so they can be fought by anyone and don't have unique techniques to exploit based on your powers, they are completely unremarkable and dull, both visually and functionally.

Wario's personality in Land is essentially just a Bluto/Peg-Leg Pete archetype, a big burly cartoon bully, which already exists in Smash multiple times over. As Wario is, he's the only character who falls into a Homer/Patrick/Heffer slob archetype, and still manages to maintain his signature meanness - how faithful he is to either Wario series is irrelevant, and I'd argue saying this is a "regression" moreso signifies that someone lacks a sense of humor than really cares about Wario. Luigi's "weirdness" is the only thing that makes him not green Mario, his non-existant character arc is just a result of games like Wonder, 3D World, e.t.c where his personally cannot be shown effectively using him as green Mario. Diddy Kong's "arc" also never existed, but even if it did, "little child chimpanzee" is a more endearing concept in a vacuum than "another brave video game hero and also he's a monkey for some reason" One-sentence or even one-word elevator pitches are important, and one of Sakurai's few merits as a fighting game designer is that he knows (knew?) this.

Crossovers - not just Smash - should be designed with a "we all have to share a roof" mentality, in that every character - no matter how iconic - should be designed and chosen in a way where if you don't know the source material or the story or the references, you can still see a coherent and interesting character without a single bit of plot or dialog, even if it's not the same character from the source material, or a chariactured pop-culture-filtered version. For instance, Wario's distinguishing factor personality-wise from Bowser and arcade-era DK is that he's greedy, but it's hard to portray greed in a moveset, or even animations - it's not a verb, Wario games aren't about "greeding" your way to the goal, Wario doesn't "begin to greed" when left idle, they're about the things Wario does with the motivation of greed, you need to find something he does - whether that is in ability or personality - that is distinct and consistent - before you bring them up, the transformations aren't consistent, that's the point, they're transformations, and that could fit for a character where you'd look at them at a glance and say "oh, that's the transformation guy" like some kind of blob, but Wario's transformations are inherently based on juxtaposition of a tough guy being put in a tough spot, if he does that every second the novelty wears off and it's just kinda awkward - if you can't find something distinctive he does, then you either have to make something up, or just skip to Ashley or Waluigi instead. Similarly, Luigi: Luigi is distinctive in Smash as the class clown, but Luigi is intentionally non-distinctive in Mario games, both for easy development and for depciting their brotherly bond - if you make Luigi in Smash "Luigi from Mario", without a plot to fall back on, interactions beyond homogenized clapping for the victor, and personality shown in only the most basic means, then anyone who doesn't play Mario will just see three Marios. "Look at all these Marths" is not exclusive to realistic character design nor unfamiliar IP, we just don't realise that because Smash has only really failed on that front in relation to a small set JRPGs specifically until very recently - there are people who don't know Wario or Luigi beyond a superficial level, or even not at all, and a lot of those people will be playing Smash - it's a mainstream IP, not Mario big but extremely close - and effectively forced to engage with those characters in some form. If Lucas isn't a crybaby, then what is he when you're tasked to make him a glorified cameo? You can't make meaningful character arcs into a game mechanic, Lucas has to either be a crybaby, blend into the crowd, or be LESS source accurate. "Flanderization" is best for everyone in the context of Smash, because Smash characters are inherently one-note through the nature of the game design, and any effort that can be made to make Smash work in a vacuum, and not just as an extension of or reward for playing other, typically multi-day-long, games, should be.

Yes, I am aware that these are bold words coming from a NASB fan. This is a failing of both NASBs, not denying that, even though I will defend two-flickies in NASB's context.

 

[FazDude]

it's hard to portray greed in a moveset, or even animations

kid named project m wario pummel

For real, though, I see your point - I feel like every character should stand out in tone/gameplay, and I feel like Wario is a good example of that. Sure, he may lean into his grossout elements to an extent some may dislike, but you can’t deny it makes him stand out as a distinct character among the other villain/bully characters in Smash.

I will say that Flanderization can be detrimental if mishandled, though - Helloooooo, Bowser voice direction.

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

I will say that Flanderization can be detrimental if mishandled, though - Helloooooo, Bowser voice direction.

That's less Flanderization and more of not letting go of the past. Back when Bowser was first added to Smash the voice direction was accurate to the source.

 

[FazDude]

That's less Flanderization and more of not letting go of the past. Back when Bowser was first added to Smash the voice direction was accurate to the source.

This is true

 

[fogbadge]

That's less Flanderization and more of not letting go of the past. Back when Bowser was first added to Smash the voice direction was accurate to the source.

diddly

 

[Cyborg Sun]

Continuing off of this:

Crossovers - not just Smash - should be designed with a "we all have to share a roof" mentality, in that every character - no matter how iconic - should be designed and chosen in a way where if you don't know the source material or the story or the references, you can still see a coherent and interesting character without a single bit of plot or dialog, even if it's not the same character from the source material, or a chariactured pop-culture-filtered version. For instance, Wario's distinguishing factor personality-wise from Bowser and arcade-era DK is that he's greedy, but it's hard to portray greed in a moveset, or even animations - it's not a verb, Wario games aren't about "greeding" your way to the goal, Wario doesn't "begin to greed" when left idle, they're about the things Wario does with the motivation of greed, you need to find something he does - whether that is in ability or personality - that is distinct and consistent - before you bring them up, the transformations aren't consistent, that's the point, they're transformations, and that could fit for a character where you'd look at them at a glance and say "oh, that's the transformation guy" like some kind of blob, but Wario's transformations are inherently based on juxtaposition of a tough guy being put in a tough spot, if he does that every second the novelty wears off and it's just kinda awkward - if you can't find something distinctive he does, then you either have to make something up, or just skip to Ashley or Waluigi instead. Similarly, Luigi: Luigi is distinctive in Smash as the class clown, but Luigi is intentionally non-distinctive in Mario games, both for easy development and for depciting their brotherly bond - if you make Luigi in Smash "Luigi from Mario", without a plot to fall back on, interactions beyond homogenized clapping for the victor, and personality shown in only the most basic means, then anyone who doesn't play Mario will just see three Marios. "Look at all these Marths" is not exclusive to realistic character design nor unfamiliar IP, we just don't realise that because Smash has only really failed on that front in relation to a small set JRPGs specifically until very recently - there are people who don't know Wario or Luigi beyond a superficial level, or even not at all, and a lot of those people will be playing Smash - it's a mainstream IP, not Mario big but extremely close - and effectively forced to engage with those characters in some form. If Lucas isn't a crybaby, then what is he when you're tasked to make him a glorified cameo? You can't make meaningful character arcs into a game mechanic, Lucas has to either be a crybaby, blend into the crowd, or be LESS source accurate. "Flanderization" is best for everyone in the context of Smash, because Smash characters are inherently one-note through the nature of the game design, and any effort that can be made to make Smash work in a vacuum, and not just as an extension of or reward for playing other, typically multi-day-long, games, should be.

Yes, I am aware that these are bold words coming from a NASB fan. This is a failing of both NASBs, not denying that, even though I will defend two-flickies in NASB's context.

"It's greeding time!!! proceeds to greed all over the place"

I don't think I've ever thrown my hat into this thread before and I don't have any new hot take to share but I will say as an occasional roster builder and even occasional mod maker (for like, one game that's not even a fighting game in the slightest lmao), I will say, it's become very fun for me recently to really analyze characters in general like this, to break them down to a core fun fighting game concept and go from there, determine what could really differentiate them. Otherwise, stuff like protagonists would just be "generically good guys with generically good guy movesets". It's weirdly also become a secondary way to love media as a whole for me.

 

[Louie G.]

"Flanderization" is best for everyone in the context of Smash, because Smash characters are inherently one-note through the nature of the game design, and any effort that can be made to make Smash work in a vacuum, and not just as an extension of or reward for playing other, typically multi-day-long, games, should be.

You can definitely extend this out toward most successful character driven fighting games, and it remains very true. Street Fighter characters are all easily understood upon first glance - if you asked someone "where is Guile from", I can't imagine anyone getting it wrong. In Darkstalkers, you can garner the way a character is just by watching them move and emote. Games like Guilty Gear, or Skullgirls have largely carried that torch. In Smash, this visual language is similarly important.

It's my belief that many Smash fans simply do not understand how to build a compelling fighting game character. Someone who can convey a dynamic personality to you just by watching them in action, and someone whose character and history can be consolidated into a moveset that suits a comprehensible playstyle or archetype. As you nicely laid out here, characters like Luigi and Wario are all the more fun for being defined by dynamic traits. Making Luigi "more accurate" to his mainline source material makes him quite bland. The games that give him the most personality - Luigi's Mansion, the RPGs - portray him as a cowardly goofball. Those games are what made me love the character and I'm happy Smash took their example... although I guess they were making Luigi kind of a weirdo as far back as 64. Dunno what that was about but I like that too.

I do of course think character accuracy is very important - that is, in my mind, conveying what makes that character special. You can take a lot of liberties within that area. Ridley, for example, is a character built more from the question "who is Ridley" than he is "what does Ridley do in Metroid". Up until Brawl, Ridley was not known for scraping people up against walls. It was Sakurai who decided to incorporate Ridley's wings into several of his attacks to take more advantage of his most distinctive design traits. Only a handful of his attacks are pulled from the games and most are done with regard to portraying Ridley as a relentless, brutal killer. Frankly it's this kind of character building approach to design that resonates with me much, much more recently.

 

[~ Valkyrie ~]

Continuing off of this:

Crossovers - not just Smash - should be designed with a "we all have to share a roof" mentality, in that every character - no matter how iconic - should be designed and chosen in a way where if you don't know the source material or the story or the references, you can still see a coherent and interesting character without a single bit of plot or dialog, even if it's not the same character from the source material, or a chariactured pop-culture-filtered version. For instance, Wario's distinguishing factor personality-wise from Bowser and arcade-era DK is that he's greedy, but it's hard to portray greed in a moveset, or even animations - it's not a verb, Wario games aren't about "greeding" your way to the goal, Wario doesn't "begin to greed" when left idle, they're about the things Wario does with the motivation of greed, you need to find something he does - whether that is in ability or personality - that is distinct and consistent - before you bring them up, the transformations aren't consistent, that's the point, they're transformations, and that could fit for a character where you'd look at them at a glance and say "oh, that's the transformation guy" like some kind of blob, but Wario's transformations are inherently based on juxtaposition of a tough guy being put in a tough spot, if he does that every second the novelty wears off and it's just kinda awkward - if you can't find something distinctive he does, then you either have to make something up, or just skip to Ashley or Waluigi instead. Similarly, Luigi: Luigi is distinctive in Smash as the class clown, but Luigi is intentionally non-distinctive in Mario games, both for easy development and for depciting their brotherly bond - if you make Luigi in Smash "Luigi from Mario", without a plot to fall back on, interactions beyond homogenized clapping for the victor, and personality shown in only the most basic means, then anyone who doesn't play Mario will just see three Marios. "Look at all these Marths" is not exclusive to realistic character design nor unfamiliar IP, we just don't realise that because Smash has only really failed on that front in relation to a small set JRPGs specifically until very recently - there are people who don't know Wario or Luigi beyond a superficial level, or even not at all, and a lot of those people will be playing Smash - it's a mainstream IP, not Mario big but extremely close - and effectively forced to engage with those characters in some form. If Lucas isn't a crybaby, then what is he when you're tasked to make him a glorified cameo? You can't make meaningful character arcs into a game mechanic, Lucas has to either be a crybaby, blend into the crowd, or be LESS source accurate. "Flanderization" is best for everyone in the context of Smash, because Smash characters are inherently one-note through the nature of the game design, and any effort that can be made to make Smash work in a vacuum, and not just as an extension of or reward for playing other, typically multi-day-long, games, should be.

Yes, I am aware that these are bold words coming from a NASB fan. This is a failing of both NASBs, not denying that, even though I will defend two-flickies in NASB's context.

Wondered how to answer on this two-parter as there were points I disagree bit. (The Egg Roll comparison to rule out Shoulder Bash falls really flat for me especially).

But wasn't sure how to tackle it well. Maybe I'll try to do more indepth response later.

But to give you a whole borscht of a summary:

To me, I still feel like the emphasis on characters as visual boildowns of their core personalities, shouldn't be the reason to completely throw possible canon abilities or skills of these characters out of the window completely as we saw with SSB4's Wario - specifically if these end up giving characters more layers of depth and generally present what they're capable of in their source games or series, become synonyoums with them during their rise to enough notability to be in Smash.

It's just been one thing to fully eradicate anything from Wario Land-games moves-wise to emphasize his Japanese-based character to global level in Smash 4... but even back in Brawl, and since, there's not been a modicum of content or paid tribute to Wario Land in general.
While yes, this might be due WarioWare being the core series Wario represents both in his character and content, it's come to really feel more like throwing a series so integral to Wario's evolution and rise to fame enough to realize WarioWare later, completely down a carpet-covered trapdoor.

Fortunately, most characters in Smash do get a balanced mix of character-driven moves and canon skill-driven ones - but with latter, it has me question on this whole "movesets adhering to canon skills are bland"-argument you're having, especially when with 3rd Parties, we have ended in situations where this has more often than not, veered too much on the other direction to detriment of the base roster. (Bayonetta in Smash 4, Steve and to lesser extent, Kazuya in Ultimate)
I even think them being supposed exceptions to the rule due being 3rd Party DLC should be re-examined hard later in SSB6, and reign back whatever canon skills or abilities they have to ensure they don't end up outclassing most of the roster in possibilities only they can do.


But as I said, most characters in Smash, even up to Ultimate, hit this quite this balance well enough - with ones not having "signature moves" / character descriptions at best to go with (i.e ) still doing really well by the creative yet believable moves/abilities created specifically for them, befitting their visual character rimpression.


On the claim of fans being bland/making characters become more bland or less creative by wanting in their canon or bootstrapped/borrowed moves utilized, Project M has always shown me that you don't have to choose between Wario's "character" or utilizing the bare basics of his bruiser moves from Wario Land-games - in fact you can even bolster his character further through them as mentioned by FazDude with the pummel easter egg. (I guess you can say he can do a little "greeding" in the side. )

Many of his kooky attacks are still in alongside weird movements here and there - so is the Waft, to keep in the weird Blutoish Mario-origins + grossout humor he engages in. The current Melee Turbo Hack even has him using a "Garlic Breath" as his Standard B in place of what could be Chomp in Brawl. It does show fans can get behind character/personality-driven tricks or moves too by some proxy.

So yeah, it's kinda felt bit extreme to say that canon moves on characters shouldn't be given much attention or even treated as elements inducing staleness or unoriginality on characters' movesets or communication of personality in it - especially if the canon skills are integral to the characters' overall personality or appeal themselves. Whether similar to other characters' moves in Smash, or not.

We're gonna get character-driven moves anyway, but if Sakurai might have say, a very... "different" idea of the character he's including versus the overall image that core fans had been long conditioned to growing with through the games and depictions that Nintendo portrayed or marketed them long years... yeah, it's understandable where these fans come from when they're going to feel a little robbed. The omission of these core abilities these core fans are accustomed to knowing or expecting from the included fighter - alongside the occassional the "flanderization"/"mischaracterization" in worst cases, ends so disappointing or perplexing to them. To tell them then that their image/impression of the character they've come to known for long time prior Smash is "not correct" or "misconception", and dismiss them invein of overly nitpicky fanboys, feels bit entitled to me through overhyping Sakurai's decisions on how he chooses to portray a fighter he's featured.

Doesn't help that Smash, being so huge, is going to introduce these characters to so many new and impressionable audiences. Plenty of them are in fora possible whiplash incase they go try the source games the fighter(s) is from: only to then discover that some of these characters' canon skills or inner depths, end up much different than what Smash represented them as - as I remember watching folks on Tumblr get weirded out by a lazy gross slob like Wario apparently lifting out because he has idle animations of that in Wario Land 4.

So yeah. I really think it's not a whole net negative to include canon moves to a character here and there, especially if its what the veteran fans are accustomed to seeing them using, and wouldn't be too difficult to implement next to their character.
Luigi doesn't most likely need Poltergust as it's not integral to his character - but to many having grown with Wario around 90s to late 2000s through Wario Land, I'd argue having Wario utilizing brutish attacks and throwing as part of his FIGHTING moveset is more integral due showcasing what he's capable of and willing to do in a party fighting game as Smash - over him riding a Bike, gross-outing as forms of attack, and moving/attacking in very bizarre, unorthodox ways, like he's never been in a fighting ring before.

If Wario Land never existed and we got Wario as a result of him rising to fame thanks to WarioWare, that'd make sense. But with current way Wario Land has shaped the character, the omission of anything from the series, has ended veering Wario too far to the "Sakurai's OC that poses as Wario"-territory in my eyes and lack the aspects or cool moves of the character I would loved to take advantage of in Smash's gameplay - and generally question the "he'd be bland or blending in with other characters if we included anything from Wario Land in his moveset"-argument when rest of the content from the series keeps getting glossed over.


Hooowee. That got a bit long.

 

[FazDude]

It's been one thing to go fully eradicate anything from Wario Land-games moves-wise to emphasize his Japanese-based character to global level in Smash 4, but even back in Brawl, and since, there's not been a modicum of content or paid tribute to Wario Land in general.

This is something I forgot to touch on in my own post - Outside of Wario’s moveset, Wario Land really needs some more representation in general. Just having one music track when the entirety of Wario World and Shake It’s OST is sitting right there is criminal. I feel like we got more Land content in the form of music/spirits, people wouldn’t mind the take on Wario himself too much.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

The difficult thing in all of thing is that not all invented nor faithful representations with characters are created equal in terms of personality or even gameplay practicality. Sometimes Smash effectively creating a type of character out of whole cloth for itself can work (and is arguably necessary) but not always. You get into very touchy territory with that general idea though because the idea that this hypothetical fighter warrants a more faithful representation (because of a number of factors) and this one does not (also for a number of factors) can be inferred as a double standard depending on the character.

DK's Smash representation is actually a fascinating example in this respect. Donkey Kong's vibe in Smash was largely invented by the team in 64 and something about it just worked (with actual games after leaning into DK as a powerhouse ape certainly not hurting things). Then you had K Rool feeling very built on the DK games he appeared in, yet that also still worked because the fighter type he embodied was fairly rare and much of what the Country/64 titles had fit Smash like a glove. Then of course there's Diddy who had his monkey elements greatly played up beyond what his home franchise often did, and while he's not an unpopular fighter, he never quite landed with the strong success that the invented DK in 64 managed or the later fairly faithful K Rool pulled off.

With Smash's nature it's a tricky beast because while the gameplay and much of the fighter presentation is made for newcomers, the series being so loaded up on fanservice (with the character trailers now more or less Nintendo giving it to fans on a silver platter) and element after element having far more significance if you are familiar with the source material? It makes it all the understandable and/or tempting for fighters to lean into aspects from the core games; doubly so from a marketing standpoint because Rock having various abilities from the mainline Mega Man titles is an easy sell to that fanbase just to name one example.

Adding to all that is that a gaming crossover like SSB is always going to operate a bit differently both with the developer's mindset and fan expectations than a licensed crossover like a NASB because at the end of the day the former has major libraries of titles with the selected fighters to compare with and the latter much less so. Some may quibble about CatDog's moveset, but few of such complaints are rooted in disappointment that the duo doesn't match how they played in various other games. Smash doesn't have such a luxury.

 

[Perkilator]

All this talk of Wario reminds me; I just touched up a rework I did of Mario’s rival that tries to balance his portrayals in Land and Ware.

 

[AlRex]

From what I’ve seen, giving Wario an entire special around farting seems like giving Mario an entire special around eating spaghetti, aside from the “gross out” aspect of it.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

From what I’ve seen, giving Wario an entire special around farting seems like giving Mario an entire special around eating spaghetti, aside from the “gross out” aspect of it.

Agreed. It obviously needs to be Luigi with that special, complete with voice clip:

Seriously though while it is strongly associated with Wario I suspect you could probably have another special and have Wario still feel just as distinct.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

From what I’ve seen, giving Wario an entire special around farting seems like giving Mario an entire special around eating spaghetti, aside from the “gross out” aspect of it.

Kind of? Wario's farting is a marketing construct and not part of the original games, like Mario's spaghetti - but spaghetti comes from the US, while farting comes from Japan, which is a major divider for Smash, the spirit list is a glaring example of that, the Smash devs are NOT superfans in the "wiki editor" sense and unfortunately don't really care for truly obscure or irrelevant content - and additionally, gross-out was more prominent in 90s Wario marketing than Italian food was in 80s/90s Mario marketing, the latter being limited to adaptations and a single voice line in 64, while the prior was directly referenced in the marketing for virtually every Wario game in both the US and Japan (the prior favouring saliva while the latter favoured poop - Wario Land 4 came with poop stickers and this commercial has poop in the background for no reason), and spawned many of WarioWare's most memorable microgames (snot slicing, toilet paper rolling, nose picking) - I personally was introduced to WarioWare by a school staff member as a kid who described it as "a Wario game that poops and pees". There's an official JP Wario Land blog post where he goes into great detail in the size, colour, and shape of his latest poop. Per Source Gaming

From: takeuthiryu, an 11 year old boy.

How big is your poop [anyway]?

Hey! Didn’t I say to quit it with the dirty questions?!

But…since this is such a good question, I’ll answer it!

Last night, I devoured 10 plates of stir-fried liver and chives, 10 crêpes, 10 plates of rice curry…so my poop this morning was huge, with a very nice yellow color!

It was so big, that it almost reached the rim of the the toilet!

Do you understand?! The smell was a mixture of pickled vegetables, spoiled eggs and crucian carp sushi! If you want to smell it, try mixing those things!!

Another thing I should mention in relation to farting: Wario began farting in games around the same time he started appearing in full 3D games with sampled sound effects, AKA when particle effects and sound effects became feasible to depict in a way that is properly well... fart-like. I'm not saying farting was the "original vision" per say, but I do think that Wario would've been farting way earlier if the Land games were on N64, even if maybe not the first game.

I do think a lot of the anti-Waft opinion is moreso rooted in a distate for gross-out humour, which I think is cringe. Gross-out is funny, Wario is funny, Smash is funny. Nothing is wrong here.

 

[Gorgonzales]

I do think a lot of the anti-Waft opinion is moreso rooted in a distate for gross-out humour, which I think is cringe. Gross-out is funny, Wario is funny, Smash is funny. Nothing is wrong here.

I think gross out can be funny in certain situations but in Smash I think the gross out elements come at the expense of Wario's cooler parts. The man has two entire specials to eating and farting, side special summons a bike (which is admittedly pretty fun but I still would've preferred Shoulder Bash as a special) and up special is completely made up.

It is what it is, as it stands I have more major characters to pick a bone with than Wario. But I appreciate how well-researched your post was and it gives good insight into why he is the way he is in Smash.

Although I could have gone my entire life without reading that JP Wario Land blog post.

 

[~ Valkyrie ~]

It is what it is, as it stands I have more major characters to pick a bone with than Wario. But I appreciate how well-researched your post was and it gives good insight into why he is the way he is in Smash.

View attachment 397243
Although I could have gone my entire life without reading that JP Wario Land blog post.

Wario Land 2's Japanese manual has some more gross-out in it IIRC.

But exactly my sentiments, really. The gross-out humor of Wario's level can be gut-busting due it's absurdity, but it wasn't really the focus, more of a spice on his character overall. The whole garlics have been Wario's "mushroom" from Wario Land 1 to this day still, after all.

Beyond that, IDK what gameplay function would they have in games, especially in Wario World incase farting would have been implemented on a 3D Wario as you Wario Wario Wario had thought, just a little later than N64. Though farting found it's way to Mario Strikers Charged, even if that game was in development around same time as Brawl.

I've just long been turned off from Source Gaming since their blog post of explaining "Why Wario does fart?" and then leaning on it being a "superior" direction to depict Wario after Sakurai's own interview explaining why he omitted Shoulder Bash in Smash 4. That post always felt like them overhyping Sakurai's visions or impressions of character(s) he includes over the collective one fans have been accustomed to seeing in original games or marketing.

The fact that they leaned also on painting the ones criticizing this as having poor understanding of good game design - something I sorta still see here and there adopted as the only valid view regarding peoples' criticisms of Sakurai's design choices - has never made sense to me as that's really comparing apples to oranges. Do we, the main demographic of consumers spending money and times of our lives on supporting and often deeply invested in this series, need to get a PHD on game design before we can criticize Sakurai permissibly without getting dismissed as the people as "nitpicky fanboy minority", or the crowd who'd only make Smash be less interesting or creative as is if listening to what they have to say?

Above's been why I haven't bothered discussing other aspects of Smash that most people might have come to love, but wasn't personally that impressed by, or willing to praise to high heavens - like the conception of as a fighter, or existence of in the roster.

Call me boring or even entitled all you want, but it's long made me feel alienated and kind of indignant over time that I was never taken seriously, or given any modicum of sympathy over my disappointment on these characters during their reveals after following a series so long reveling on its main appeal of ""fighting it as your favorite/beloved Nintendo All Stars" in it's general sense, while prohibiting too obscure Nintendo-IPs from spotlight on the roster most of the time, doing odd casting choices or omissions on certain recurring characters from mainstream series...


Kinda reminds me of my venting post from March 2018 regarding my pet peeves of Wario's before Ultimate's reveal trailer:

Let me tell you a little story.

Back a long time to my browsing in Tumblr, I came across a post that had someone get genuinely baffled about "why Wario looks so buff in Smash 4", enough to rival likes of Ryu and Mac. People made joking statements about him being the peak of male performance and much more.

Here then I am, remember exactly why he's so "buff":

It had me wonder sometimes, why we don't see much of Wario before to be featured in any sort of games on his own, aside from WarioWare - which has basically gone on a hiatus by this point since poorly selling and much less robust Game & Wario, now given one last push with a game on a handheld system that I expected to see a game from the series in the beginning of it's lifecycle, instead around it's end.

I have a strong theory to this however and that is, Wario's just not very appealing and potential character to make games about anymore, honestly. I think his joke character archetype based on his eastern portrayal has grown slowly more and more shallower and dull since Brawl-days, forcing him being stuck on being face of Warioware and revert basically back to what he was first conceived of before his breakthrough: a silly, exaggerated caricature of Mario.

Fun Fact: The above version doesn't have guns featured about him, much like how Wario's perceived these days.


If going by that article from SourceGaming (which I never had really enjoyed, even if I can see their points), Wario's characterization today could be said to be "proper" today. The thing is, it hasn't made him exactly popular or even likable in the West since - and IDK if that's a big compensation on his miniscule fanbase on East as well.

I mean, today he's the kind of guy who'd do raspberries often like a manchild during interviews and pull up things like "Crowdfarter" to raise money, and just laze around in a crappy apartment with no heaps of treasure in sight.

Mario gets to call him cuckoo-crazy in his rare long dialogue-filled interviews for Mario Sports Mix - and while some might have disagreed with him due Wario having packed good legacy by that point... today, a majority would agree with him due Wario's recently less impressive outings and much more shallower characterization.

It's like we hopped on alternate universe were Wario tried to constantly go after Mario and foil his plans of various sorts as his second rival, though even more of a pushover and difficult to take seriously than Bowser would ever be.

After failing over and over again like many of these comedic joke villains go, he'd settled on a not-very-rosy life where he tries to strike it rich in other various ways, and showing other levels of buffonery and crudeness veering on typical immaturity.

Prior to all this decay, Wario was able to brag completely about his sheer amazingness (and good looks) in Wario Land-games - and he never was really wrong with it - he's apparently a crush of one of the more popular Nintendo-females under the radar of Smash-series.

And as known most iconic to him, not many characters in Mario-verse can brag about having a huge castle full of treasure - and their guardian is a highly formidable and surprisingly competent brute to earn it all.

It is probably why I didn't mind Wario's weirdness or crude tendencies on top of it all - he got to make himself even better than he's allowed to be today, while still staying true to himself without turning himself incompetent. And as far as I've seen, majority out there share the same sentiments, even if it's not easy to put to words with this kind of a character. Like, there was this rowdy coolness to him all around as he just lived the life to his eccentric whims and gained ton with it. It made you feel like: "Dude, he's kind of gross and immature at times, but damn, he's living the life. Don't I just wish to be this guy." That's what made Wario one of my most favorite Nintendo-characters ever, and was to many, many more as well.

Games like Project M understood Wario's all aspects perfectly, and brought up alive what I thought was impossible to ever see in Smash-game since my disappointment on Wario in Brawl and SSB4: being the crass, yet strong and tenacious anti-hero who's greed, despite being his ultimate flaw and signature trait, didn't make him unflattering or incompetent in the process - instead, it became a source of his motivations and strength to branch out off from his self-proclaimed nemesis's shadow, and earn him the sizable loot and whole castle grounds to revel on himself.

I never understood why we just couldn't have both, instead of favoring the Eastern characterization which I feel bit like became the status quo for Wario after Brawl's success coupled with it's heavy representation of Warioware. And well, could majority of casual fans see WarioWare-Wario in glorious and comedic treasure-hunting adventures from the past? No, they wouldn't.

Because Wario's now too lazy and incompetent epitome of gross, according to Smash 4's US Trophy description.

This used to be the same guy, who after 3 romps of treasure hunting, bought a super-cool car pimped all up in his emblems and colors, and as you boot up Wario Land 4, you're given one of the most sublime intros ever grace in videogaming history:

And he's just off to another awesome adventure of treasure-hunting, like the good ol' Scrooge McDuck himself.

I'll just put this quote from this post on Tumblr to sum it best:

Wario is interesting because he’s not just anti-mario but the opposite of what we’d expect from a protagonist at all, someone rude and selfish and weird and kinda ugly, and his goals only just happen to line up with helping other people out sometimes because there’s money involved. Yet he’s endearing, because he owns up to it completely and we all relate to it on some level, and again it’s not like he isn’t getting punished constantly, he just puts up with it cause that’s who he is.

So yeah, all of this is why I've found it been so crass and plain ignorant for Sakurai to brush Wario's rich legacy so aside, only to create his own characterization that frankly hasn't held any candle to the original so far. Combine with the deep irony that how Warioware-series would have never been as good if we never had Wario Land's ongoing legacy allowing it to perfect it's quirky, whimsical Japanese humor to it's best in Wario Land 4, before finally hitting it's pinnacle Warioware Inc. - Mega Microgames.


So yeah, Wario Land Wario is still my number one - so understandably, I feel like he's not really existing in Smash-games. He's just... there. You know, there. Being uh, a wacky sort of character that I'm sure a lot people like, but honestly - they could at least take a look at Wario's glorious days of best platforming Nintendo has ever created on their handheld system history.

Instead of you know, finding it befuddling how can a gross buffoon like him, happen to be "so buff".

Now, I don't really care much anymore on how Wario's gonna be portrayed onward, as I'm tad older, am more than aware of Wario Land's continuing dormancy easily keeping Wario pretty much unchanged in a SSB6 or further onward. Though I'd have to check out WarioWare's latest games to see if something would end lifted from those as new moves to his wacky arsenal.

But again, I'm kinda content enjoying Wario the way I prefer him thanks to the moveset hacks that generally give his bare basic Wario Land-moves and then some back. Though it does make me little wistful thinking that Wario could have been my no.1 main in the entire series if it weren't for the way Sakurai settled on designed him.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

Wario Land 2's Japanese manual has some more gross-out in it IIRC.

But exactly my sentiments, really. The gross-out humor of Wario's level can be gut-busting due it's absurdity, but it wasn't really the focus, more of a spice on his character overall. The whole garlics have been Wario's "mushroom" from Wario Land 1 to this day still, after all.

Beyond that, IDK what gameplay function would they have in games, especially in Wario World incase farting would have been implemented on a 3D Wario as you Wario Wario Wario had thought, just a little later than N64. Though farting found it's way to Mario Strikers Charged, even if that game was in development around same time as Brawl.

I've just long been turned off from Source Gaming since their blog post of explaining "Why Wario does fart?" and then leaning on it being a "superior" direction to depict Wario after Sakurai's own interview explaining why he omitted Shoulder Bash in Smash 4. That post always felt like them overhyping Sakurai's visions or impressions of character(s) he includes over the collective one fans have been accustomed to seeing in original games or marketing.

The fact that they leaned also on painting the ones criticizing this as having poor understanding of good game design - something I sorta still see here and there adopted as the only valid view regarding peoples' criticisms of Sakurai's design choices - has never made sense to me as that's really comparing apples to oranges. Do we, the main demographic of consumers spending money and times of our lives on supporting and often deeply invested in this series, need to get a PHD on game design before we can criticize Sakurai permissibly without getting dismissed as the people as "nitpicky fanboy minority", or the crowd who'd only make Smash be less interesting or creative as is if listening to what they have to say?

Above's been why I haven't bothered discussing other aspects of Smash that most people might have come to love, but wasn't personally that impressed by, or willing to praise to high heavens - like the conception of as a fighter, or existence of in the roster.

Call me boring or even entitled all you want, but it's long made me feel alienated and kind of indignant over time that I was never taken seriously, or given any modicum of sympathy over my disappointment on these characters during their reveals after following a series so long reveling on its main appeal of ""fighting it as your favorite/beloved Nintendo All Stars" in it's general sense, while prohibiting too obscure Nintendo-IPs from spotlight on the roster most of the time, doing odd casting choices or omissions on certain recurring characters from mainstream series...


Kinda reminds me of my venting post from March 2018 regarding my pet peeves of Wario's before Ultimate's reveal trailer:





Now, I don't really care much anymore on how Wario's gonna be portrayed onward, as I'm tad older, am more than aware of Wario Land's continuing dormancy easily keeping Wario pretty much unchanged in a SSB6 or further onward. Though I'd have to check out WarioWare's latest games to see if something would end lifted from those as new moves to his wacky arsenal.

But again, I'm kinda content enjoying Wario the way I prefer him thanks to the moveset hacks that generally give his bare basic Wario Land-moves and then some back. Though it does make me little wistful thinking that Wario could have been my no.1 main in the entire series if it weren't for the way Sakurai settled on designed him.

Your criticisms of Smash's Wario are based solely in the character's personality (partially outright headcanon), in ways that cannot be portrayed within Smash's framework, as opposed to an actual moveset. None of this would be portrayed or communicated just through Wario hitting people with his shoulder, as Smash does not have a capacity to show any kind of deeper character nuance - even Project M's Wario still communicates as "weird gross guy", they didn't modify the mentality behind the animations even if they did modify the animations themselves, he moreso comes off as "weird strong gross guy", with weird as the priority. If Wario was portrayed based on Land/World, that could really go too ways, either he's just a tough guy and nothing else - since you cannot portray motivation in a moveset, just direct character action - and he completely blends in with the other Bluto-likes; or you use the transformations and he's even weirder and weaker, making a whole moveset out of hurting himself. The references you give for "Western Wario" have gross-out elements you're ignoring - the Wario Blast commercial IS a gross-out gag, the joke is based around Wario wanting to **** a bomb, and he's drawn with detailed saliva, complete with what is essentially a saliva jumpscare at the start. As I mentioned, all the Western Wario commercials aside from World have gratitiously animated saliva featured. A true "Western Wario" would likely have saliva in his animations, even if not the moveset, and in arguably a more prominent role than Waft even if not functionally used. I think another thing you're ignoring is that people who think Wario is just a gross gag still like Wario. Wario's Smash portrayal has not made anyone hate Wario - you can dislike it, but it's not an "impure" Wario and it is not harming the character's reputation as a whole whatsoever. Absolutely nothing wrong is happening in your anecdotal tale of people being shocked to see Wario as "buff", those are Wario fans - even if possibly not fans of Wario games - engaging with the character in a way they find fun, they are not disparaging Wario. You have to understand that in Smash, more people will be exposed to your character than just fans, and there will be more fans for those characters than just those who have played the games, or even have any kind of interest in them - either you live with that, or you shouldn't want your character in Smash.

also ew, did you seriously say "females"???

 

[fogbadge]

Personally I never once questioned Wario having a fart attack

 

[Diddy Kong]

Honestly nothing wrong going for certain thematics with characters for move set inspiration. It build up certain characters well, who otherwise have close to nothing to build with. Captain Falcon is a good example, prime example in fact. Sheik is too, she was chosen in order to have a ninja archetype fighter. So she fights like that.

The fact they sometimes take this approach a little too far with say, DK and Diddy where someone could argue to make them more like themselves and not like a generic gorilla and monkey, that's where it gets a little muddy. With the right voice clips for them (and Bowser too) and DK having a Barrel Throw attack or Barrel Cannon Up B and Diddy having maybe something else than a Banana Throw Down B this is fixed. Diddy being less of a problem cause DK64 is still heavily featured as inspiration, and this translated in Diddy having these abilities in DKC Returns and onward. So... not much that's unfixable there.

Wario however, unique case. He has his thematics as the funny gross guy right. But this clashes somewhat with the typical brutish protayal and abilities of the Wario Land games. I always imagined he'd be a more heavy weight fighter before his inclusion for example. There's a little to gain here.

And in some cases I think certain move sets where created with lesser available technology so the characters suffer a little from it nowadays. I think Mewtwo is such a case. Definitely wouldn't be as much of a tail swiper if included in a more recent Smash game. Kirby and Samus I also feel are more limited in their move set than they could be.

 

[UserKev]

It's unfortunate for me that Wario's Land moveset went swept under the rug considering how cozy of a moveset it could've been.

 

[fogbadge]

Honestly nothing wrong going for certain thematics with characters for move set inspiration. It build up certain characters well, who otherwise have close to nothing to build with. Captain Falcon is a good example, prime example in fact. Sheik is too, she was chosen in order to have a ninja archetype fighter. So she fights like that.

The fact they sometimes take this approach a little too far with say, DK and Diddy where someone could argue to make them more like themselves and not like a generic gorilla and monkey, that's where it gets a little muddy. With the right voice clips for them (and Bowser too) and DK having a Barrel Throw attack or Barrel Cannon Up B and Diddy having maybe something else than a Banana Throw Down B this is fixed. Diddy being less of a problem cause DK64 is still heavily featured as inspiration, and this translated in Diddy having these abilities in DKC Returns and onward. So... not much that's unfixable there.

Wario however, unique case. He has his thematics as the funny gross guy right. But this clashes somewhat with the typical brutish protayal and abilities of the Wario Land games. I always imagined he'd be a more heavy weight fighter before his inclusion for example. There's a little to gain here.

And in some cases I think certain move sets where created with lesser available technology so the characters suffer a little from it nowadays. I think Mewtwo is such a case. Definitely wouldn't be as much of a tail swiper if included in a more recent Smash game. Kirby and Samus I also feel are more limited in their move set than they could be.

yeah I expecting him to be a hard hitting heavy weight as well. probably cause double dash had be the same weight as bowser and let's face it he's been super strong in a lot of games

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

The fact they sometimes take this approach a little too far with say, DK and Diddy where someone could argue to make them more like themselves and not like a generic gorilla and monkey, that's where it gets a little muddy. With the right voice clips for them (and Bowser too) and DK having a Barrel Throw attack or Barrel Cannon Up B and Diddy having maybe something else than a Banana Throw Down B this is fixed. Diddy being less of a problem cause DK64 is still heavily featured as inspiration, and this translated in Diddy having these abilities in DKC Returns and onward. So... not much that's unfixable there.

Literally what is Diddy Kong other than a little monkey? I agree the voices are dumb, but everything Diddy does that isn't being a little monkey (his DK64 moves) is already in his moveset, there's practically nothing to draw from with the character outside of that, as the DKC characters are all-but-cosmetic in gameplay, as distinct there as Mario and Dr. Mario are in Smash. It's not unreasonable to look at a little monkey and say "He should fight like a little monkey".

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Don't know if this would be considered unpopular to some people, but it has boggled my mind that Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Bowser weren't given their typical Mario series voice clips for Smash 3DS / Wii U and Ultimate. I mean, Yoshi, Bowser Jr., and the Koopalings were all able to keep their respective voice clips. Heck, even Banjo and Kazooie were fortunate enough to keep their respective voice clips.

King K. Rool is a mixed bag though, since the last time he had a voice portrayal was in Mario Super Sluggers; not a lot of diverse voice clips to work with in that game. But it is worth noting that the last person to voice K. Rool (Toshihide Tsuchiya) still voices Funky Kong today.

Anyway, the realistic animal sounds made sense in Brawl and its more realistic approach, but not so much in the more cartoonish approach that Smash 3DS / Wii U and Ultimate took.

 

[MasterCheef]

This is at a minimum not popular enough ;

All counters except KKR's , in the next smash game should be replaced & no new character should get one.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

This is at a minimum not popular enough ;

All counters except KKR's , in the next smash game should be replaced & no new character should get one.

Gonna be real. People complaining about counters is usually a pretty good litmus test for how skilled they are at the game.

There's a lot you can do against counters. They aren't used much in competitive matches aside from intercepting certain recoveries.

 

[MasterCheef]

Gonna be real. People complaining about counters is usually a pretty good litmus test for how skilled they are at the game.

There's a lot you can do against counters. They aren't used much in competitive matches aside from intercepting certain recoveries.

Gonna be real here there should NOT be a move which make the opposite player afraid to attack because it offers invulnerability especially when the MOVE CAN INSTANTLY INVALIDATE MANY OTHER CHARACTERS RECOVERY . More importantly competitive is NOT the smash fanbase , casual still is

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Gonna be real here there should NOT be a move which make the opposite player afraid to attack because it offers invulnerability especially when the MOVE CAN INSTANTLY INVALIDATE MANY OTHER CHARACTERS RECOVERY . More importantly competitive is NOT the smash fanbase , casual still is

My dude. You can still be on the offensive. You just need to grab.

 

[A_Kae]

especially when the MOVE CAN INSTANTLY INVALIDATE MANY OTHER CHARACTERS RECOVERY .

Putting the rest of that post aside, I want to focus on this because I don't think it's a bad point. Counters vs certain linear recoveries are kinda a free kill for very little effort. You can put the blame on the bad recovery too of course, since they're usually easier to intercept with any number of other options as well, but counters in particular have generous timing/spacing (20f+ active and just put yourself in the path of the hitbox). Certain recoveries have gotten adjustments over time to help this (ness used to be a very prominent example of this, now he's invincible forever during pkt2), but there's still chars it feels kind of cheesy against.

Not really a huge problem overall since it's very matchup specific and there's always going to be stuff like this, characters who are better at edgeguarding certain others, but counters are a bit disproportionate here. But if you make countering recoveries worse you remove like 99% of their usecases outside of casual and very low level play, so I wouldn't expect them to change much in that regard.