Given that us MCLA students are going to soon embark upon our winter break, I wanted to get up one more analysis of how the Smash Ultimate metagame and overall game looks thus far. So far, some things have been about as we expected, but (predictably) there have been things we didn’t account for, and some things which have been truly surprising in the early going of the game.
Without further ado:
1) Character viability surprises
Never did I ever think the words “Bayonetta can’t kill” would be uttered in the same sentence, but maaaaaannnnnn has the Bayonetta metagame gotten off to a horrendously slow start. Mistake and Captain Zach, two of the best Bayonetta players in Smash 4, have reportedly dropped her as their main for fear of badly nerfed she got in Ultimate. Well, Pink Fresh, another great Bayonetta main, has stayed the course with Bayonetta so far, and this is what happened:
Holy shit. Seriously, watch that video. In fact, here’s a fun idea for those of you at or above the age of 21: take a shot for everytime Pink Fresh gets Static to 200% in this set. I suspect you’ll pass out and be unable to finish reading this article, though, so maybe don’t do that. Now, again, this is not some slouchy Bayonetta player who picked this game up yesterday. This is Pink Fresh, a top five Bayonetta in all of Smash 4. Not only does he lose to some unheard of Bowser main ‘from Delaware’ as the commentary crew puts it, he gets STOMPED on by that Bowser player. So, what we have here initially almost looks like Sheik if Sheik had a laggy, slow neutral. Bayonetta has insane combo potential, but she lost her ladder combo. Lost the fair wall-of-pain from Smash 4 (though we at least expected that) and Witch Time totally sucks now. What looked like a shoo-in for the top ten in the game now totally does not look the part anymore. Don’t sleep on the Umbra Witch, though; I suspect better days are ahead for her. This is a character with a great moveset who, as previously noted, has great combo potential. Pink Fresh is an insanely talented player, and he seems intent on thoroughly exploring the Bayonetta metagame, so progress is going to be made.
Not Pikachu, not Sheik, not Bayonetta nor Olimar, but… King K. Rool? Yep! King K. Rool has drawn the ire of the community. He’s been so good that non-K Rool players everywhere have been clamoring for nerfs for him on social media everywhere. Heavies have had a bad history throughout Smash history, but it could be K. Rool himself who ends up taking home the crown of best character in the whole game here. Speaking of crowns, his lethal, underrated side B, where he throws his crown at the enemy, has been the catalyst for his viability. It has an excellent arc, great range, it’s spammable and it can lead into so many setups and is a tool to link into kill attacks. Oh, and, speaking of kill confirms, K. Rool has those too. Remember when we thought his only kill confirm was derived from his Blunderbuss? Well, that helps, but how about simply Down throwing into a free F-Smash for the kill at 70%? That’s something K. Rool can do, and with his crown heavily pressuring the player, this is not that hard to land. K. Rool’s Blunderbuss can actually inhale players too, and works as a highly intriguing ‘kill throw’, with an alternate use of stage spiking the player by firing them at the wall of the ledge. Yep, we have an AMAZING character on our hands here.
On launch day, we learned that Joker from the Persona 5 video game will be including in a future release of DLC characters. If you don’t know who Joker is, neither do I, so you’re not alone. Still, the announcement came from virtually nowhere and it means that, when Smash is all done and every character has been released, we will have a whopping 80 characters on our hands. Now that’s some variety!
2) Mechanics
Movement in this game feels as good as it looks. It’s still a straightforward enough game to pick up and learn, but it’s not as rewarding for carefree, mistake laden play anymore. If you air dodge spam offstage, you are dead. The end lag to air dodge is much, much higher now. Still, giving directional air dodge and increasing the frames at which your invincibility is active not only gives you a tool which is still viable as it was before, but it also now does a better job at rewarding skill and punishing spamming; if you air dodge correctly, you can avoid the attack you were trying to dodge. But if you mindlessly spam the move trying to avoid the attack, you’ll end up dead. In Smash 4, mindlessly pressing the move was viable, and it made it less rewarding for players to get in an advantage state, giving the disadvantaged player an easier way to reset neutral.
Wavedashing may be a useless skill to learn, but it’s amusingly made a return to Ultimate. Not as prevalent in Melee, wavedashing can be done by short hopping and then directionally air dodging in the direction you want to wavedash in. Simply dashing or fox trotting are better movement options that cover more options than wavedashing does, and with no discernible advantage, there’s really no point learning to wavedash here. But still, it’s a funny option to maybe try to use if you are trying to make a flashy, stylish play.
In a similar vein to air dodging, rolling and spot dodging have been nerfed despite still being usable. They now function similarly to air dodging; they can be used to avoid attacks, but they can no longer be mindlessly spammed. Repeated usage of these options successively causes them to get progressively slower as they are used, making it harder to dodge attacks and easier for the opponent to punish. Another mechanic which favors actual skill over brainless spamming.
So far, Nintendo has delivered on what they have promised. We have the Ultimate game! With the metagame as wacky as it is, it will take some months to stabilize, and there will be so much more to cover and talk about. Still, this will be my last article for about a month, during which time I’ll be looking to decide who I plan to main in the game!
To that point, I wish everyone a happy holiday. Smash on!