Smash Wii U!

Does anyone have this one? I went and got the game and Gamecube adapter today, definitely hyped. Haven't had a chance to get the crew over and really play the thing, but it's been a blast so far. I still can't believe 8-Man Smash is in there, that's gonna be so fun.

All I have to say is, I wasn't sure I was gonna like the new Bowser, even though he's buffed, because he's been changed so much, but he's ungodly powerful and awesome and I love him, so...my favorite character went from being nearly bottom tier to very legit, so I'm ready to destroy some people with Bowser.

We have a copy reserved at our game shop in Winthrop. I still can't say I'm nearly as hyped about it as most seem to be. Of course, I know it'll be fun once we get it and try it, so don't get me wrong, I'm just not hugely excited for it, least not as much as you'd think.

On characters. Bragatyr, glad to hear you like Bowser. While he wasn't my very favorite, I did enjoy playing him in Brawl and I'm glad to hear the changes are an improvement. Granted, I don't care about tiers. . I stopped giving tiers any stock when a bunch of tournament players laughed at me for playing Ness in college and I then proceeded to school every single one of them. I think the player-character mix matters far more than the character alone.

Speaking of Ness, my favorite, I expect him to probably be largely the same. His core moves haven't changed since Melee, though I'm sure he's been tweaked here and there. I know Pit is quite different from Brawl, due to an, IMO, completely unnecessary new addition to the Kid Icarus series a year or two back on 3DS. Thanks to that, there's now Dark Pit and Palutena. Like most new characters, I'll probably give them a fair shot, but I'm not too excited for either. But I may be surprised. For my other favorites...well, Lucas has been removed ( ) and DK, like Ness, probably isn't too much different.

The only 'new' character I'm excited about Mewtwo, who unfortunately, is paid DLC due out in spring. Most of the new additions otherwise don't excite me that much. But I'll try them, because hey, you never know!

I'm actually interested in the study of tiers and match-ups and competitive viability in competitive fighting games. It's something I have to be aware of, especially as a low-tier main. I actually tend to pick overlooked or unviable characters in most fighters I play; Bowser and Ganondorf in Brawl, Zangief in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and Q in Third Strike, all of whom are low or bottom tier. Of course, I'm also aware from personal experience that it's very easy to get counter-picked as a low tier. Almost every tournament I went to as Bowser, someone would counter-pick Dedede after I beat them in the first match. I could beat Meta-Knight, Snake, Marth, Lucario, and other high tiers, because Bowser actually only moderately loses to them, but anytime someone picked Dedede, even if they rarely used the character, it was practically an auto-loss. That's because Dedede has an infinite chaingrab on Bowser in addition to just being able to easily walk him across the stage with his normal chain-grab for like, ungodly percentages of damage. The match-up is considered 80-20, so it's virtually unwinnable. Unfortunately it has very little to do with player skill, because the mechanism that allows Dedede to win is stupidly easy to do.

I do believe in the synergy between player and character, but of course that only goes so far. It's really all about match-ups, the character usage in the tournament, and the bracket you get. The greatest Ganondorf players in Brawl history have never won a Brawl tournament, for example, and rarely place well in major tournaments, simply because Ganon has such godawful match-ups. Meta-Knight, who is far and away the most used character, absolutely destroys Ganon, it's nearly unwinnable.

Granted, a Ganon can get lucky in a given tournament and face characters with whom he goes fairly even. It's not likely he'll only get Bowser and Falcon and other low tiers like that, but it's possible he'll play Wario, Snake, Wolf, or other characters he has a chance against. Ganon's problem is that he has so few winnable match-ups that this is extremely unlikely. So the match-ups are definitely important, as is character usage, which contributes to a general tier list. That's just a reality tournament players have to deal with.

Of course, with players of varying skill, any character can conceivably beat another character. But with players of equal skill, the innate advantages and disadvantages in match-up more heavily come into play, because both players are aware of the options and shortcomings of each character. This is reflected in tournament statistics. Unfortunately, Brawl is a particularly unbalanced game, so Ganon has only won one significant tournament that I know of, and it was considered a miracle, whereas Meta-Knight has won countless. Even Ness, who is mid-tier, rarely places well in regional events, and almost never places in major national tournaments. He actually has it a little easier than Bowser, but a good Marth or Donkey Kong are almost impossible for him if they know the match-up. He does actually have a good match-up with Meta-Knight, though, which is very valuable and rare for a mid-tier character in Brawl.

Fair enough, man. I do get that some characters have inherent advantages/disadvantages against others, I do totally get that. I also get the existence of exploits such as chain-grabbing (playing Ness, I was a victim to Falco and Marth chain grabs more than once). I think I exaggerated a bit when I said I gave NO stock to tiers, lol. It's interesting to a point for me, but getting too far into it, at least for me, quickly sucks the fun out of the game, especially if I'm playing with competitive people who do all that complex analysis that don't take loss well. I have unfortunately played with people who get into all those intricacies, and when that vision gets broken, have gotten particularly nasty towards me. Heck, first time I played with those tournament guys, a few of them got very upset with me, going so far as to start swearing at me in a very nasty way, when I was winning with Ness, who they did not hold in high regard, and at the time, I did not understand why. Thankfully, those guys came to me the next day in the dining hall and apologized to me for their behavior, and welcomed me to play with them from there on (and also retrospectively complimented me for being as skilled as I was with Ness). They became some of my good friends and we started learning from each other. Me, some of the intricacies of tournament and competitive play, and them, sometimes just forgetting the competitive, detailed stuff for a while and just having a good time.

There are differing philosophies there and I've come to understand and appreciate both on some level. I've only played in a handful of tournaments, placing second (as Ness) in a one-on-one (guy who beat me was Bowser, who admired my Ness skills and wanted to play with me after the tournament, and during that, I beat him a fair few times as he did me), and first in a team tournament where my teammate was Pikachu. This was a small-scale tournament at a convention, so nothing major there.

But when it comes down to it, I don't pay too much attention to the tournament/high level play stuff. I dabble in it sometimes, get my feet a little wet, but in the end, I'd much rather just have a good time with my friends and not think about match-up stats and those details.

I totally get you on the unsportsmanlike stuff that goes on at tournaments. I'm really sorry that happened to you, people are real jerks in a lot of fighting game settings. I saw the same thing, and that was the main reason I stopped going to tournaments. At literally every tournament I attended some goober would say "HEY, YOU KNOW BOWSER IS LOW TIER, RIGHT?!" or shout "BOWSER IS TERRIBLE!" while I was playing a match. I wanted to say, yes, I know, you're not the only person who reads Smashboards!

I guess that kind of insecurity and general hostility come with the territory in a competitive environment. Kind of sad, but oh well. I try to look at it more positively, I'm always the person who commends people for choosing overlooked characters and doing amazing things with them. I would have been cheering you on for playing with Ness. It's a lot more interesting to see a diverse character roster than to see only the same four top and high tier characters in any given game (Marvel vs. Capcom 2, I'm looking at you!).

Bragatyr wrote:

I guess that kind of insecurity and general hostility come with the territory in a competitive environment. Kind of sad, but oh well. I try to look at it more positively, I'm always the person who commends people for choosing overlooked characters and doing amazing things with them. I would have been cheering you on for playing with Ness. It's a lot more interesting to see a diverse character roster than to see only the same four top and high tier characters in any given game (Marvel vs. Capcom 2, I'm looking at you!).

That keeps me out of most competitive play too. But hey, all the same, that one moment I described yielded something extremely positive. After that initial bad blood, those guys owned up to their poor sportsmanship, apologized for treating me so poorly (I was pretty upset that night once they start cussing at me and I stopped playing for the time) and as a result, we became friends. We regularly played together at our college gamer's nights and it was really a blast to play with them after that one bad incident. They got a lot better about their sportsmanship and I think we all became better people for it.

I would be cheering for you, also using an underused character. In that one tournament I played in, I was quite happy to lose against Bowser in that match that mattered, and it definitely was a very close match between him and me.

I've really been enjoying the online in Smash Wii U. For Glory is pretty darn good, aside from the fact that team attack is off in team matches. I've mostly been playing Bowser, but I still love Ganondorf, who seems quite improved. I'm just bummed that Falcon is kind of gimped online due to the input lag. He's so fun to play, and he's awesome in this one.

So we finally got our copy and played for around an hour and a half or so.

First impressions good. And...the little changes they made to my favorite character Ness I like. He feels just a tad faster to me and slightly less floaty, but still retains everything I loved about him in Brawl. His PK Thunder hit is still stupidly strong, his throws are still awesome, and he's so darn cute. I tried plenty of characters, but started with Ness and was gravitating to him. He may remain my favorite.

Second returning favorite from Brawl, Pit. He does not fare as well. Most of the changes they made to him I don't like. I DO like his new side special, but he doesn't feel nearly as in control in the air as he did in Brawl. Sorry, Pit, but I don't like you as much. Also, your voice is incredibly annoying.

Another favorite, DK. What is there to say? He hasn't changed much and that's what I want.

Bowser. Bragatyr, hands down, I agree with you on his improvements. He felt much better and more responsive.

And Samus. They drastically improved her. She felt way too weak in Brawl, and they fixed that and gave her a bit more aerial weight. I felt far better with her.

Among the new characters, my favorite was easily Little Mac. He felt like a smaller, faster DK to me.

Also, when the Starman from Earthbound came out of an assist trophy for the first time, I can say I screamed out "STARMAN!" What a wonderful treat, especially as Jeff also remains an assist trophy.

Those are first impressions.

I totally agree. I haven't played Ness myself, but just from playing people online he seems very formidable. His Forward Air has always been good, but wow, it's amazing now. Beats out just about anything and combos into itself up to three times. And yeah, that Back Throw, too good.

I'm really glad they improved Samus, too, she needed it. She was really interesting in Brawl, but didn't have the kill power at all. Little Mac is my favorite newcomer as well, just really interesting and neat, but I have to admit I've gotten where I really like Bowser Jr., too. He was actually the one newcomer I was opposed to, because I find him annoying as a character, probably because he's sort of replaced the Koopalings, but as a playable character he's too fun.

I was actually a little disappointed at first that the game felt so much like Brawl, even though I loved the game, but now I'm realizing it feels a good bit more like Melee due to the hit-stun, speed, and lack of SDI. It's really a good synthesis of the two games, and it feels really, really balanced so far.

Bragatyr, I hope you checked out Bowser Jr's alternate colors, because his alternate colors are actually all the Koopa Kids.

Ness has always been good in the air, as all his aerials (with the exception of his down-air) are super fast and can combo into each other really well. Even his neutral-air has a surprising amount of power to it and it's fast. Unfortunately, we don't have a Gamecube adapter (and apparently they sold like hotcakes so hot that people are selling them on eBay for $300+), so using the Wii U non-touchscreen controller took some getting used to and I'm still tweaking around my control configuration. Those controllers are not friendly to smaller handed folks (which I am), and the Y button is virtually useless to me as it's just too far away from my thumb. I think I'm getting close to a configuration that can work, but it still may need tweaking. I still haven't found a good way to make all the key things (attack, special, jump, grab) intuitive, but I may just need a bit more time to adjust and get used to it. At least I can still keep shield the same. But otherwise, there's just no way to really mirror the Gamecube control configuration that I use and am used to, especially for playing Ness. I may play more today, but before I do that, I have schoolwork to address and I may want to play some God of War or Far Cry 3 as well once the aforementioned schoolwork is done.

Haven't played online, but...I really don't like playing online with random people all that much. I just prefer being in the same room with whoever I'm playing with, or at least have some way to talk to each other real-time. But that said, Bragatyr, it might be fun to play online with you sometime, if you're interested.

Also, it's so nice that now, for custom names, there's enough characters to fully spell out my preferred name, which is Metalhead.