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Super Smash Bros. (Spoiler: Snake Kills Ganondorf)

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That's really awesome, I actually played games on my calculator a lot junior year of high school. I felt cool because I had a TI 89 Titanium so I could play Ultima V.

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Balance update is out, but no patch notes because Nintendo. If you look in the right places though, there's certainly a lot of people trying to figure out what's different, and it certainly seems to be quite a lot that has changed.

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I'm actually pretty excited they're doing balance patches. Like, I don't play Smash competitively and probably never will (though who knows), but Nintendo rebalancing their games? Hell yes.

 

Shame about the lack of patch notes, though.

 

Also I preordered Wee Woo Smash this morning. I assume it'll auto-download when it's ready (in a few weeks?). The future is now. X:

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Shame about the lack of patch notes, though.

 

Baby steps, gotta move in baby steps.

For a baby game.

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i spent the better portion of my gaming time this weekend playing on wiiU and even had some folks over yesterday for local multiplayer. King Dedede is still a jam which makes me very happy

 

my initial impressions is that is a very pretty update to the typical model.  i love/hate the abundance of characters unlocked; its nice to start with but leaves something to be desired for the new foe approaches" screen in ~400 matches.

 

The solo experience is pretty good too; events, all star, and classic is great.  the board game is weird and not terribly appealing...but maybe it'll grow on me.

 

 

An annoying issue i have is setting profile/custom controls - i like wii-mote & nunchuck but want the down on the D-pad to be my jump (default shield).  The profile selection is not sticky and has to be set every mode change, this is a mild grievance and maybe i should just use a GC controller

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So hard how to evaluate a new Smash game. I mean, I'm happy to play it. It looks great, and it's still Smash, so all is good basically.

 

But at a critical level it's so difficult to judge. Because there aren't any obvious major design changes to point to and say this is different. Instead you have a ton of little things.

 

I will say this, the stage designs seem way better this time around. Besides that one F-Zero track level there aren't any stages that I find really irritating. It seems like Nintendo has figured out what people hated about moving platform stages, and fixed all that up, and that makes me happy.

 

All the nerfs I've seen for some of the old characters all seem sensible to me.

 

Has anyone figured out the Villager? He can plant and grow a tree, but what does that accomplish exactly? Very confusing guy.

 

The board game makes me feel like I'm on heavy drugs and trying to follow someone explaining the rules to a game, and I just don't understand anything at all. Weirdest thing.

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 It seems like Nintendo has figured out what people hated about moving platform stages, and fixed all that up, and that makes me happy.

Wait what? This is a thing? Those are the best stages...

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You misspelled "awesome". You only got one letter right! Weird.

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New Smash is a hit for me. It's gorgeous, and frankly I'd have been happy with a remake of Brawl that looked this good. But nobody worry, it's certainly much more than that.

 

The game is faster and less floaty than Brawl. But it's still not as fast as Melee or Project M. Hardcore competitive smashers might disagree, but I'm really happy with the middle ground. Unlike Melee, Smash 4 feels like a game that I have some chance of developing proficiency with: I can actually follow competitive matches on a move-by-move basis (for characters I'm familiar with). I could only do that with Melee with footage slowed-down, really. Maybe that makes the new game a baby game, I don't know; I might be a baby.

 

On the other hand, Smash 4 is quick and technical enough that I actually want to develop proficiency. I liked Brawl, but I never had much fun without items. The speed of that game was perfect for reacting to four-player items-on wacky-stage-hazard madness. But with items and hazards off, even I could understand why some pro players were disappointed. Personally, I find Smash 4 in competitive-mode *much* more exciting. 

 

...which makes net play more important to me, so I'm thrilled that this game's online mode feels really good! (so far!) The 3DS version had some really deeply frustrating lag sometimes, especially around launch, but so far I've felt none of that on the Wii U. I might just be lucky. But I'm optimistic. If online play remains this good, Smash 4 might become the first fighting game I've ever tried to "get good" at competitively.

 

The single player stuff (that I've tried) is at least as good as it's ever been, but with several improvements. Most significant is the ability to play pretty much anything 2-player local co-op. This is huge. It's making classic and all-star modes, historically pretty bland and repetitive, an actual blast. Event mode was a favorite of mine from Melee, so I'm glad to see it back (although I haven't done many of them yet). I haven't tried the board game thing yet... I'm dubious, but I'll try it with an open mind when I find the chance.

 

Finally, I find all the new characters cool and interesting (Stupid Dark Pit notwithstanding). 

 

So yeah. I'm really happy with it. It's hard not to think about it constantly. I haven't had a chance to play with more than 2 players locally, but I'm hoping to remedy that over the Thanksgiving weekend.

 

Has anyone figured out the Villager? He can plant and grow a tree, but what does that accomplish exactly? Very confusing guy.

 

Tree is a weird move. It's three moves, really: details here on the smash wiki. Summary of the three practical uses (that I'm aware of): 1) when the tree sprouts it damages/knocks-back characters above it, 2) when a tree is planted Villager has an axe which is a decently strong attack on its own, 3) Villager can chop down the tree, falling trees do massive damage/knock-back.

 

I really like Villager. He's a weirdo, but very satisfying to play.

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Moving stages are definitely just loathed by most people i've played Smash with.

Regarding Villager:

You first plant the seed.

When the seed is planted, you get a watering can. You can use the watering can to grow the tree, and the growing tree works like a smash attack. However, before expending the watering can on the tree, it can also have utility elsewhere since it generates a small push. You can use it to mess with people's stage recovery, for example.

Once the tree is grown, you lose the watering can and gain an axe. The axe itself is an attack with a ton of knockback at high percentages, but knocking down the tree creates a huge hitbox with a long duration that is almost certainly a KO even at moderately low percentages. Then you have to go plant a new tree and start the process over.

Villager has some other things, he can fly on the gyroids if you hold that side special, and his side smashes will fall straight down if released from edges. His side aerials are a useful fast-moving projectile, and hIs neutral special will also pocket anything the game regards as a unique physical object distinct from the player using it. (This includes a ton of special attacks in the game, it's even been shown that he can pocket certain final smashes.)

Villager is a ton of fun.

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Pokefloats is like the best level.

 

what is wrong with all of you people

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Man I find Smash Bros. online to still be completely intolerable. It's definitely an improvement over Brawl (I have chat logs of conversations about over a second of delay in some instances!), but even a quarter of a second (probably about what I'm experienced) is just way too much to actually be able to play the game properly. It's a real shame. When will internet be instant? Geez.

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That's odd, i've been finding it really very good lately. Like, legitimately good and playable. There might be a few frames of delay in there, but not enough that i feel like that is what is costing me matches.

 

Playing games online via a wi-fi connection can be crazily variable though.

(That said, i haven't played in the last few days. Maybe it's gotten bad again now that people are all rushing to the Wii U game.)

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I played about a dozen matches online, and only one of them had any noticeable lag, and it was only for about 30 seconds.  I hope Twig has just been really unlucky and his experience isn't typical...

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I don't know if it's what's costing me matches, but it's definitely what's costing me having fun. It's completely miserable. I played a few matches with a friend the night it came out, and then I played a bunch of random matches earlier tonight. All bad.

 

Also a significant framerate drop on top of lag is pretty unacceptable...

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Wii U verison, just to be clear? If you're relying on a wi-fi connection, your Wii U might be getting a weak signal. Smash Wii U will definitely be a game that needs a clean signal or, ideally, a wired connection.

I'd say, more likely, that Nintendo's servers are just boned right now. The 3DS game was all over the place for a few weeks when it came out, but match quality steadily improved over the subsequent weeks.

(Edit: I have not played the Wii U game, also to be clear.)

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That sucks. Like I said above, I've been playing the Wii U version and have had about as little lag as I could've hoped. Which is to say, almost none. Too bad mine is not the universal experience.

 

To be clear, I only play online 1-on-1 For Glory. From what I hear, items increase lag significantly. I imagine more characters would too.

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Yeah Wii U version. And yeah I need to get an ethernet connection going on. But then I have to buy an adapter, don't I? *checks back of Wii U* Yep. FWIW, there's nothing blocking line of sight from router to console. Not that that's the only way to get a rough connection, of course.

 

To be clear, I only play online 1-on-1 For Glory. From what I hear, items increase lag significantly. I imagine more characters would too.

Undoubtedly this contributes. But I have literally zero interest in playing Smash without items. So fuck me I guess.

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Playing against friends on the 3DS game, I've had totally smooth matches with a full party. (We don't use items though.)


Again, i suspect Nintendo's servers are probably just boned right now, the Wii U game just came out.

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My internet is shoddy so thankfully I have the most fun when playing 1v1 no items on neutral stages (Battlefield, Yoshi's Island etc.)

 

I have only played the 3DS version and for the most part I'm having fun in For Glory (played ~500 matches) and against friends.

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