Super Smash Bros. for 3DS / Wii U

I don't have much to say about this as a party game or a single-player game - that's never where my interests have lied for Smash Bros. As far as that goes, hey, you've finally gotten the chance to pit the dog from Duck Hunt against the trainer from Wii Fit, Bowser's son in a car, and, uh, Cloud Strife. M.U.G.E.N., but a real game! I do wish the custom moves had been implemented better - I think I only know one other person who bothered to unlock them all, and it's a painful chore barely worth the reward once you realize no one else gives a shit - and most of the single player sucks (but who really cares?).

As a competitive game, well, I've been involved in that scene since the game came out, so I do have plenty of thoughts on that. I'm by no means great - usually in the top 5 of my local rankings, as if that means anything - and I haven't gotten deep into the community in other roles. I've been a tournament organizer and commentator on a few occasions, but in roles that are peanuts compared to what others have accomplished. Still, I've thought way more about this game than is probably healthy for someone who supposedly considers this a mere hobby, so here we go:

1. Right outta the gate - rage is the single worst mechanic about this. Basically, the idea is the the more damage you've taken, the stronger your moves become. As a party game, it's brilliant. Competitively, it's complete horseshit. (This is a frequent dichotomy in this shitty, amazing game.) It's not just that a player is rewarded for losing, allowing for "comebacks" that feel more engineered than earned. It's also that, in the 2-stock format standard to tournaments (inspired by the game's own settings - that's the format they chose for their online "For Glory" matchmaking system, and also the most logical for the game's speed), rage can amplify the advantage of the winner. Once you've taken the first stock, that's huge, because the other character won't have the rage that would have let them nab the kill a few seconds ago. The winner then has a chance to build up more damage while the other player struggles to find the kill, and can then use their own rage to secure the kill before the losing player gets rage of their own. (And to be clear, most of these kill moves are balanced around rage - the percent where most damage-racking combos stop working is usually around when kill moves will work with rage, but not without.) Even if the losing player does take the stock, the rage they have accumulated will probably be juuuust enough that their early combos won't work as efficiently, significantly harming their damage output and making the comeback they were supposed to be able to get more difficult to get. That they can still get the kill earlier balances it somewhat, but it still feels like a random opportunity where they can suddenly land one move and win. Smash 4 is extremely inconsistent, and this is a big reason why.

2. The other reason is that the game is designed around what some have dubbed the "Smash 4 factor" - the big low percent kill option a character has that can completely change the flow of the game. Some characters are built entirely around one of these - such as DK's "ding dong" combo off of a grab - while others have a few, less potent choices but don't rely on them as much, such as Fox (who can kill you 20 different ways from Tuesday). Now, if every character was balanced like, say, Diddy Kong or Pikachu, where they can be tricky things to land that can be equated more with "clutchness" than luck, that'd be great. But that's not always the case, and in some cases it's borderline unfair. Too often you say a player dominate the neutral, racking up damage the entire game and brutalizing every opportunity in advantage, before losing due to one or two mistakes. It's a very unforgiving game, which makes it both exhilarating and terrifying. I hated it for a while, but after a while you kind of learn to accept it as a design choice of the game, and now I kind of like it. Still - it too often sucks to lose to something that feels like bad luck.

3. Patches have made this game waaaaaaaay better. I haven't liked all of them - a lot of bad characters got improved simply through a grab combo that kills, a Smash 4 factor that artificially inflates how good they are through one overcentralizing option. But for the most part, they've done an amazing job fixing a game that, in all honestly, was kind of bad to start, Never mind that the 3DS version was practically unfinished - Yoshi glitched back to the ledge pretty easily, Olimar was straight-up broken, and many characters had hitboxes that didn't work properly - the design philosophy behind a lot of these characters even by the release of the Wii U version was just behind. The Smash 4 factor didn't really exist yet; instead you had a few characters who had one really good move that they could spam all game long, and it'd work. Diddy Kong has been nerfed 2 or 3 times now and he's still a top 5 character; his banana peel gives him insane control over what the opponent can or cannot do, allowing Diddy to sit in his shield and react to most approaches by throwing an item that combos into guaranteed combos that rack up lots of damage and eventually kill. But now, his kill options are a little more limited - up smash kills later than most moves, and forward smash only kills near the ledge. His up throw combos into up air to kill at only very specific percents. But before the patches? He would down throw into up airs every single time, as it was his best way of dealing damage and his best kill option, killing earlier than most smash attacks. He had the best neutral and the best kill confirms. They nerfed him hard, and eventually reworked him (through some buffs, as well) into a fair and very well-designed character.

They did a similar thing with Sheik, who had a 50-50 kill option that basically just required the player to guess between two options, and if they guessed right they won the match - on top of her incredible ability to work up damage through safe moves and fast movement. Now, she has the same ability (even better, actually - players have gotten much better at creating unique combos and kill confirms with her), but she struggles to kill. (She falls victim to the Smash 4 factor very often.) They took away Luigi and Zero Suit Samus's absurd kill options. And in the meanwhile they fixed some characters whose moves didn't work properly, like Marth's and Mewtwo's, both of whom went from among the worst characters in the game to some of the best. Some still don't entirely work, like Samus and Wii Fit Trainer, but they still work well enough. Most balance changes work towards fulfilling a specific design philosophy behind a character, making them not an awkward mishmash but characters with a purpose.

4. That said, Bayonetta and Cloud are badly balanced and occasionally threaten to break the game. I'm absolutely thrilled that both are in the game, but their execution just shuts down a lot of what makes the game great. Both have been nerfed twice, but are still clearly the two best characters in the game. Bayonetta is frequently compared to a Marvel vs. Capcom character, who can kill you off of a stray hit at nearly any percent. In addition, her recovery and keepaway game are stellar, able to rack stray damage from afar with her bullet arts while keeping a strong defensive option in Witch Twist, which will hit basically anyone who whiffs a move in front of her. And that's not even mentioning Witch Time, which freezes the opponent for 2-3 seconds if she uses the move when they're about to use an attack, which usually leads to instant death, or at least enough damage that death isn't far off. Her combos work at almost every percent, and because most of them ladder you way into the sky, most characters can die at just about any percent. Because of this, and Witch Time, just trying to land even a weak attack can be insanely scary.

Cloud, meanwhile, has an enormous sword that works incredibly well offensively and defensively. It makes it so his advantage state is nearly impossible to escape, and so that he can be near impossible to approach if he spaces his moves right. His Limit Charge ability forces characters to approach so that he doesn't get access to a few incredibly fast and powerful kill moves. His only weakness is that he can die really early if he gets thrown off stage, since his recovery is really bad and easily interceptible, but he's still difficult to get there (and even then, he's not quite as simple to edgeguard as it seems - plus, with limit charge, he can recover from just about anywhere).

Both of these characters just about shut down most mid or low tier characters, and even a few top tier characters. Cloud, in particular, is one of the easiest characters in the game to pick up, and even an untrained one can oppress some mid tiers who just don't have the options to contest with him. In the context of the good characters, he's actually fairly balanced, but he just destroys most of the weaker ones. In addition, he's insanely good in doubles because he can swat opponents to his teammate from just about anywhere, and his teammate can then send them back to him to combo into any one of his crazy strong limit moves. Bayonetta just beats everyone, and the more her combos are optimized, the more difficult she becomes to beat. Salem - the best Bayonetta in the world - is starting to look like the best player in the world, and it's absolutely scary,

Smash 4 probably best represents Nintendo's growing pains with finally latching onto Web 3.0 marketing, which blew its load way too early with a series of cool character vignettes...that would make up the entirely of the in-game opening. Such is Smash 4, which is so focused on singular spectacle that the whole package suffers. The character roster features some surprises but also notable omissions and feels a lot more lop-sided, and an attempt to bring the adventure mode into the multiplayer mode means the single player suite suffers greatly for it, almost going back to the original were it not for the mission mode.

Not a bad game, but certainly a step down in aesthetic completion, and even technical prowess (3DS multiplayer can lag even locally).