Why is GaW considered bad?

[Controlled_Chaos]

Game and watch is my main, and I have trouble seeing why so many people say he's bad (or "not bad, but worse that the rest") I feel he's a little hard to play, but not bad.

In not playing at a high competetive level, BTW.

 

[Xenozoa425]

He isn't, at least not in my eyes. And I used to think he was a total useless character ever since I unlocked him in Melee back in 2001, only using him for single-player to unlock things.

Then last year I tried him out in 2.5, never looked back. Dude is so insanely fun to play as.

 

[Controlled_Chaos]

I agree. But If you look trough the tier list thread or that apex one, he is mostly considered low or med-low.

Do people still have that meele mentality, or am I not seeing something here?

 

[Juushichi]

GnW has really real struggles, but you can win with him.

 

[Controlled_Chaos]

Care to specify?

 

[Italia06823834]

Care to specify?

His defense is pretty lacking probably most notably is his super slow tech and shield rolls and it can be tough to approach with him.

 

[Controlled_Chaos]

True. I guess my opponents don't exploit these weaknesses enough. Hurray for bad matchup knowledge!

 

[FlamingForce]

He's kind of a one-sided character with very little to offer on the defensive side, coupled with the fact that he's very light and dies quickly.

He's pretty good on the offensive side but still has "Decent" approach options at best (His sh neutral b is neat but somewhat random and not entirely reliable.)
He's not unplayable-level bad by any means imo but there are other characters who can just do what he does alot better.

 

[Metmetm3t]

It's not really that he has terrible defence. He has bad techs but he has decent OoS stuff and can Up-B out of combos. But the Up-B escape only goes so far. It's his small amount of safe options in neutral that probably hurts him the most. He has to commit pretty hard to his aerials and bacon doesn't scare most characters for very long.

But despite that he has one of the greatest combo games in PM and his kill potential is through the roof. This makes him a king of punishing and keeps him in most matchups. His biggest struggles are with character that can reel him in in neutral. Just play smart when it comes to committing to approaches and you should win more than you lose.

also ratta ratta unnecessary thread. plz post in general discussion

 

[KinGly]

As a mario main with a G&W secondary, I feel that the two play pretty similarly, especially in terms of their combo/punish game. That being said, everything that G&W does, it feels like mario can do a little better.

 

[Italia06823834]

That being said, everything that G&W does, it feels like mario can do a little better.

Two words: Disjointed Hitboxes.



I do love Mario though

 

[VillagerComesToTown]

When I was younger, I used to use G&W as my main. But that's because I thought he was cool. XD If you told me to use him now, I probably wouldn't be able to hold my own in a tournament. I feel like he can't take hits like other characters can.

 

[Morian]

G&W can freeze people offstage.

A tier at least.

Jokes asides, the only thing that bothers me is that I need control configurations to play as Mr. Game, no-tap jump and Z-attack command to perform his amazing dacus.

 

[proxibomb]

Game and Watch is a viable character for tournaments. Although he struggles with high tiers, he can do very well with others. He has a very good combo game going, just watch Nintendude using G&W. His down-tilt and dair are extremely useful in tournament play too. Don't let people who played him in Melee say he is bad in Project M.

 

[Raijinken]

He's fun, but like others have kinda said, he takes some really hard reading to get going from neutral. That said, if you pay close attention to the number indicators and can read someone into a 9 3-4 times per match, you might be able to convince your friends he's OP.

 

[GreatKingBowserKoopa]

Uair is your best friend for combos.

Dthrow -> Dtilt -> Uair -> Uair -> Up B -> Nair
is a pretty powerful combo. Although you don't exactly have to do the Dthrow at all since it can be teched.

 

[Luxent]

I find that G+W massively suffers from losing is fishbowl Nair and not having his parachute open.
IDK, I usually use G+W in the air, spamming the Dair and UpSpecial, so having the parachute NOT open limits my options for approaching.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

I find that G+W massively suffers from losing is fishbowl Nair and not having his parachute open.
IDK, I usually use G+W in the air, spamming the Dair and UpSpecial, so having the parachute NOT open limits my options for approaching.

I always thought the parachute after the Up-B slowed him down and made him more predictable, while having it as his Nair is much better, as it deals more knockback and a bigger hitbox than the fish bowl.

 

[Taytertot]

IMO he'd be quite a bit better with more of his brawl moveset (most notably up-b) because he is ranked 16th if my memory is correct in brawl and one of the big reasons it isnt higher is because of poor approach options. his brawl moveset may not help too much with the approach but his recovery would be better at least (i think the only other moveset difference is nair and idk if brawl G&W nair is better or not, though having a multi-hit aerial certainly helps). not to say that i havent seen touneys won with PM G&W.

 

[shapular]

The real reason that G&W is bad is because, in a game full of unpunishable crap, he's punishable.

 

[The 9!]

His defense isn't awful thanks to his frame 1 Up-B, but it's poor nonetheless. His offensive game is incredibly strong if you understand how to combo and edge-guard with him. Overall, I think he's a strong character, probably mid-tier, that has some trouble in neutral because your opponent will probably figure out how to get around bacon and F-air approaches. I think your understanding of comboing with G&W will determine your success with him in high-level play.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

His defense isn't awful thanks to his frame 1 Up-B, but it's poor nonetheless. His offensive game is incredibly strong if you understand how to combo and edge-guard with him. Overall, I think he's a strong character, probably mid-tier, that has some trouble in neutral because your opponent will probably figure out how to get around bacon and F-air approaches. I think your understanding of comboing with G&W will determine your success with him in high-level play.

Amen!

 

[Cpt.]

His nair, bair, down tilt and Up B are worse than in SSBB

 

[WillieDangerously]

People don't really understand him very well. He is a little frail (being 3rd lightest character in game), his dodge roll is awful, and alot of his game takes more practice than some to pick up. Not to mention for some reason people don't seem to appreciate floaty characters.
However he has many plus sides I feel like are greatly under appreciated. He has 3 of the strongest moves in the game (Fully charged bucket and sometimes only a 2 charged bucket can kill off 0%, 9 hammer, and his Usmash can rival Lucas'), he has a chance to heal from his sideB (granted he also can hurt from it too), many moves have a lot of power, dtilt has superb range, and his down throw just slams them to the ground in front of you, setting up some crazy combos (dthrow to dsmash can guarantee a kill at certain percentages), has a great recovery, and he's really really hard to look at. Seriously, have you ever fought one? Or remember how it feels to fight one when you didn't main him? He is so annoying and distracting to watch him move that's borderline obnoxious! He's an unorthodox character with an oblong moveset, but that's why I love and play him. He will always go under appreciated and if he isn't then something has gone wrong.
Edit: Not saying he's top tier; he isn't. He is good, but not top tier mechanic-wise. You have to try to play the G&W to be good at G&W.

 

[Needle of Juntah]

No one knows how to play him

Ive only played PM a few times, but GW is insanely OP. I havent played the new version yet though.

 

[Needle of Juntah]

It's official, G&W in 3.5 is my favorite champ to play in any game, used to be Harbinger from Bloodline champions

 

[Strong Badam]

I love G&W!

 

[Taytertot]

Does anyone know the reasoning behind switch G&W back to his melee moveset? I realize that brawl isnt popular for many melee and PM players but i liked his moveset in brawl and feel like the brawl moveset would do well in the PM environment. Obviously the frame data would need to be changed but what was wrong with it that the PM dev team felt the need to mod it back to melee; G&W was never very successful in melee so im confused (not to say that G&W is as bad as he was in melee).

 

[felipe_9595]

Does anyone know the reasoning behind switch G&W back to his melee moveset? I realize that brawl isnt popular for many melee and PM players but i liked his moveset in brawl and feel like the brawl moveset would do well in the PM environment. Obviously the frame data would need to be changed but what was wrong with it that the PM dev team felt the need to mod it back to melee; G&W was never very successful in melee so im confused (not to say that G&W is as bad as he was in melee).

Melee G&W moveset was more aggro and provided him with good tools, but the character had a butchered LCancel, mediocre rolls and techs, a shield that didnt cover him, and well, he was bad, he had some tools but most of the character itself was made unplayable by other reasons.

He has Brawl grabs and throws, Bair and bucket and brought back some things from melee that were better (Nair, Dair, Fair), in the end its the best of both worlds.

 

[Shockbound]

To be honest, the only tangible differences between the movesets of Melee and Brawl G&W that I can see are his N-Air, D-Air stall-fall, and weird floaty 1-move only out of Up-B mechanic. Melee's G&W had lots of potential to be an amazing character but he ended up falling short in high-level play because his moves were so full of useless jank that limited him for no reason. He can't L-cancel his N-Air, B-Air or Up-Air due to technical limitations since they all have some sort of special landing effect. Overall, he felt as if he had been overlooked in development and was likely not a very high priority.

-THEORY AHEAD-

Spoiler

We know how Sakurai thinks SSB should be played: Like a filthy casual. G&W only exists because he was such a ridiculous choice for a fighting game character that he was well received as an addition to the roster during development, and it was impressive enough that he functioned at all. He served his purpose in the casual game experience by just being there, not because he substantially added any real gameplay value.

What seems like a clever blend of aesthetics and gameplay is actually just a lazy way to include him in the game. His design choices are not based off of their function as a gameplay mechanic, but rather because they just "made sense" from a casual standpoint. Other characters function better as their gameplay and aesthetic mesh well within a fighting game because, in their games, fighting is what they do. Take Marth for example; all of his attacks can be summed up as, "he swings his sword." As a result, there are many possibilities that can come from his moves that also make sense aesthetically. Mr. Game & Watch was never a fighter; his talents are limited to zookeeping, frantically flipping meat, and jumping out of burning buildings.

Every single one of his moves are based off of his various games, and I feel like he was designed purely with aesthetics in mind. He was first designed as a novelty character, and Sakurai slapped barely functioning gameplay on him because his inclusion in the Smash roster at all was more of a formality than anything, seeing how as he is a key figure in Nintendo's history as a company. As a result he was left underdeveloped once aesthetics were out of the way since other characters were undoubtedly more important.

The PMDT looked at Mr. Game & Watch as a character from a fighting game instead of as Mr. Game & Watch. He has some unique mechanics that make him an interesting fighter and they wanted to utilize the potential of them to make him a fun and viable character.

Does anyone know the reasoning behind switch G&W back to his melee moveset? I realize that brawl isnt popular for many melee and PM players but i liked his moveset in brawl and feel like the brawl moveset would do well in the PM environment. Obviously the frame data would need to be changed but what was wrong with it that the PM dev team felt the need to mod it back to melee; G&W was never very successful in melee so im confused (not to say that G&W is as bad as he was in melee).

The reason Mr. Game & Watch is less viable in Melee than in Brawl is because he can't do basic tech, like L-canceling. He also lacks core mobility options that aren't even technical, with his dash being extremely slow and clunky, forcing him to rely on dash-dancing. His shield doesn't cover his entire model and leaves him vulnerable even when it's full. Combined with his awful approach options and extremely low weight, other characters can provide exactly the same benefits that he has without expressing the major drawbacks and flaws he has. Brawl has an entirely different metagame and ruleset for him to play by, wherein he is not hindered by his inability to L-cancel most of his moves because nobody else can do that either in Brawl's engine. His weight is also not a significant factor in Brawl either due to the way airdodging works, which effectively removes true combos from the game.

Brawl G&W as a result only functions well in Brawl. PM is much more like Melee than Brawl, and as a result, he does not share many of the same qualities that his Brawl counterpart does. PM G&W is almost completely identical to Melee G&W but does well because all of the jank got fixed.

 

[Needle of Juntah]

Melee G&W moveset was more aggro and provided him with good tools, but the character had a butchered LCancel, mediocre rolls and techs, a shield that didnt cover him, and well, he was bad, he had some tools but most of the character itself was made unplayable by other reasons.

He has Brawl grabs and throws, Bair and bucket and brought back some things from melee that were better (Nair, Dair, Fair), in the end its the best of both worlds.

Agreed here.

I actually liked brawl G&W a lot, doing moves out of the UpB is paramount, so glad they added that into the melee moveset.

Oh and bacon... yummy

 

[bËst^]

Judging GW as "bad" in PM 3.5 is kinda strange as the metagame still is under development and there and almost every character is capable of doing well in high level.

I think GW is somewhere around mid-tier, with potential to take down many popular toptiers.

Yes, his defensive gaming is still his worst area, but it is still way better than Melee had to offer. Being able to act after upB gives him huge tool to escape out of pressures and control neutralgame. His neutral game is overally pretty decent: bacon is good, but far from being the best projectile in the game. Fair is great, but bit too laggy and easily crounch canceled and very risky when opponent is on the ground with low percentages.

RAR -Bair instead is way better at low percentages. You got better aerial control and spacing, while delivering multiple hits. I've also found Dair very useful as it got possibility to multihit crounching opponent. And cause you can L-cancel it to UpB, it gives you opportunity to cause some sort of "pseudo pressure".

In the end, GW can act as ultimate gamblecharacter. And yes; I'm talking about the Judgement. Even thought 9. got nerfed, it is still powerful KO-move and expecially at low percentages. His every throw can lead to free Judgement if you read correcty. With great reads you can also avoid getting punished eventhough you happen to miss the Hammer. Using Judgement is up to preference and personal opinion weather you like to have low risk high reward gamble, or cause some certain damage on opponent. But the hammer is always on option and purely for that reason I see GW as potential high tier threat.

Not the best character in the roster (marth can be very difficult to handle, also fox if you don't get early bucket kills / chain grabs) but definitely not bad character.