We now have mere weeks until the release of “Smash Ultimate.” In the time leading up to its fateful release, gameplay of many characters, including an invitational tournament and some exclusive demo releases, have been given out. This has brought up a lot of character based questions—How viable will this character be? Does this combo still work? Is this strategy still useful? I wanted to highlight five more of the most interesting characters, and forecast how they will impact (and be impacted on) by the new iteration of Smash.
1) Mr Game and Watch
Lost amidst the controversy surrounding G&W’s forward smash (the one with the feather depicting an Indian chief on it) has been the rapidly changing structure of what is Mr Game and Watch. Mr G&W has always been known for his Judgment attacks—with the 9 of Judgment being the only legal move in all of Smash that is able to one shot every character in the game from anywhere on the map. Well, that much of him has been left alone, but he did get a number of other intriguing modifications for the next iteration of Smash. First, and arguably most importantly, his fair has changed; he no longer smashes his target with a 2D box of sorts when using fair, he now drops a small 2D bomb that falls a small distance before exploding. This is definitely a buff, as it can be used as an intriguing edgeguard tool, great at catching particularly linear recoveries (which are virtually everywhere on most characters without multiple jumps). Additionally, G&W’s Down smash no longer sends its targets flying—it now buries them, granting G&W a brief period to follow up the attack with something else. G&W’s Bucket now reflects projectiles in addition to absorbing them, and also does this against non-energy based projectiles as well. Finally, G&W’s infamous “Toot-toot,” his uair, now has a more consistent, active albeit somewhat weaker hitbox. Overall, G&W has been buffed, but this is rather bittersweet—Toot-toot getting its power nerfed will hurt. Short of randomly (and desperately) fishing for a 9 of Judgment, Toot-toot was G&W’s best way of picking up a kill, so the power it used to offer will be missed. However, G&W’s matchup against characters with poor recovery, such as Cloud, Ganondorf, Captain Falcon, Little Mac, maybe even the Belmonts, will be improved greatly through his new fair. Overall, G&W is probably going to be a middle of the pack character. He still is really, really fragile and dies stupidly early, and without a menacing combo game, zone/wall game or kill confirm, he’s still not terribly impressive. But, after spending most of his Smash life since Melee trapped in the cellar, he can now emerge a little bit and be more viable than he has been before.
2) Lucario
Lucario’s moveset won’t see any changes, but the hugest (and only truly important) modifications to Lucario stem from his somewhat revamped Aura mechanics and recovery. Starting with the recovery, Lucario’s Extremespeed now has much, much less end lag, and can be used to get back on stage in a much safer way. This is obviously a straight up buff. Meanwhile, the modification everyone is talking about is Lucario’s somewhat watered down Aura. To add some context, Lucario’s Aura makes it so that everytime he gets hit, he deals more damage. As his % rises, he gets stronger and stronger until 150%, when his power is terrifyingly high. When not hit, Lucario would be abysmally weak, and would begin the match at a noticeable disadvantage, needing to get hit a few times before possessing decent power. Characters with early % kill confirms, like Bowser and DK, tore Lucario to pieces since they could easily weather Lucario’s weak attacks and kill him easily before his Aura could really power up, since they were heavies and could take hits from Lucario. However, at 150%, Lucario could do insane things, like kill a midweight with a simple down throw into uair at 30%. Both of those extremes have been reduced in Smash Ultimate; Lucario’s immediate, 0% power is greater than that of Smash 4, but his Aura builds up less progressively and at 150%, Lucario is much weaker than he would’ve been under similar circumstances in Smash 4. This is a mixed bag; Lucario’s snowball effect caused him to be a popular counterpick against characters like Sheik and Mario, characters who were very, very good, but could struggle to kill at times. Lucario will lose this utility almost entirely given the new mechanics of the game. Being less pitiful at the start of the match is nice, but I’m not sure it’s worth the tradeoff of essentially forfeiting Lucario’s niche of basically killing you in two hits when he’s at 150%. Because of that level of uncertainty and the general lack of anything particularly impressive Lucario has, I’m going to say he’s going to be at the lower end of the middle of the pack in the game. Overall, I’m going to say he got nerfed; while there may be less of a risk factor in playing Lucario, there is a significantly lesser reward as well.
3) Toon/Young Link
Yep, these characters have the same exact size, ground and aerial mobility, and movesets, so I’m going to bunch them into one analysis. However, don’t let that fool you into thinking they’re the same exact character. Young Link is going to be much, much, much better than Toon Link, and will subsequently contend for a spot in the top ten in the game, while Toon Link will firmly be in the middle of the pack. Why? Well, take Toon Link, bolster his frame speed significantly, give him more kill power, and give him something to actually land with, and you have Young Link. It’s simple as that, really; if Young Link didn’t exist to blatantly outclass Toon Link, Toon Link would be a contender for the Top 20. Thankfully for both, their general character design fits the Smash Ultimate engine like a glove; they are both small with small hurtboxes, they’re fast, have kill throws, kill confirms, and can, if necessary, make a reasonable attempt to camp/zone their opponent out. This gives both of them great flexibility. Finally, as a cherry on top, they should both draw great matchups against the Belmonts. Both of them are small enough to avoid their whip attacks, don’t have to respect the Belmonts’ projectile games, have kill confirms to strike back with, and can match the Belmonts’ outstanding effective range with a solid enough effective range of their own. In a similar vein, Toon Link’s worst matchup in Smash 4, Rosalina and Luma, has been nerfed badly enough to the point where neither of these small Links will have too, too much trouble with her anymore. Book Young Link to compete for a seat in the Top ten. Don’t use Toon Link unless you’re just playing for fun, as he is blatantly inferior to Young Link, and will be forgotten about in the depths of the middle of the pack. At least, unless a nerf to Young Link ever surfaces in a future patch.
4) Ike
It’s funny how Ike was widely regarded as “a worse version of Cloud” through Smash 4, where now in Ultimate, the reverse will be the case. Ike is going to be an extremely strong contender for Top 10 in the game. He got gifted an incredible new uair, faster and just as powerful as before, which can be used to juggle, combo and link into a kill confirm. All of the stuff about Ike that was good in Smash 4 remains, and much of it has either been buffed, or indirectly made better through the overall mechanics of the game. After Smash 4, many characters either lost or suffered a huge blow to their combo game. Ike is no such character. He still has an incredibly fast, lengthy d-tilt to combo with, his down and up throw still combo, and his aerials are even better than they were in Smash 4, as they now autocancel on a much friendlier frame than before. Does that maybe sound like a certain Final Fantasy protagonist who had most of that in Smash 4? Finally, the game mechanics nerfing campy play couldn’t have come at a better time for Ike; he is not slow, but isn’t fast, and having a slightly bigger than average hurtbox gave Ike a bit of a rough time against campy play, specifically projectile based camping. Ike isn’t going to fare very well against Pikachu, and probably will have trouble with the Belmonts, Bayonetta, Diddy Kong and Olimar, so he unfortunately won’t have a very good matchup spread against his fellow top tiers and thus will be difficult to solo-main. However, this can be said about an extremely large amount of characters (virtually everyone not named Bayonetta, Pikachu and Diddy Kong) and thus shouldn’t be held against Ike too, too much. Given that Ike’s tangibles are all extremely solid, there’s little holding him back from breaching the top ten for the first time in his character’s history.
5) Marth/Lucina
The original/echo due, affectionately known as MarCina by the Smash community, is back and will be just about as good, if not better, as they were in Smash 4. Lucina, in particular, has always been a fantastic choice for newcoming players; she has always been really good, has a fairly straightforward moveset, and can generally help newer players refine their neutral games, until they’ve either decided to get better with Lucina or move to a different character. This would likely explain why Lucina has always been splashable on the tourney scene, particularly at lower levels of play. Moving onto the big stage, Lucina and Marth both had lots of success in Smash 4. Lucina, notably, was ZeRo’s secondary, though he seldom ever used her, using her pretty much just to take on Ally’s Mario, who he struggled with otherwise. They will both be safe locks for the Top 20, mostly because there’s nothing particularly bad about either of them. As far as which of them is better, if you ask 100 different people that question, you’ll get 50 who tell you it’s Marth and 50 who tell you it’s Lucina. It all comes down to Marth’s Tipper mechanic; kill easier if you can land attacks with the tip of his blade, have a harder time killing than Lucina if you can’t. ZeRo believes Lucina is better because she is more consistent and can pick up kills more reliably than Marth. That sounds easy and straightforward until you see Marth catch Pikachu with a Tipper F-Smash at 30% and send the little yellow rodent flying across the stage to its death, something Lucina could never do. Ultimately, whether you favor Marth or Lucina is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things; they will be right next to each other, viability wise, as Top 20 characters in the game. Interestingly, King K. Rool has been gathering more and more positive attention by the day, viewed by some as a fringe top ten in the game. This would serve to greatly hinder MarCina’s viability, given that the pair can struggle to pick up kills against heavy characters. The situation is worth monitoring for prospective MarCina players, but even if K. Rool does flirt with the top ten, MarCina will remain firmly in the Top 20.
Some news worth mentioning with regards to predictions I’ve made in the past:
King K. Rool – As previously mentioned, King K. Rool has been generating a ton of positive attention over the course of the last week. As I predicted, King K. Rool does have a semi-consistent kill confirm based around his Blunderbuss attack. However, I believe I rather errantly compared this to Duck Hunt’s can kill confirm. In truth, K. Rool’s kill confirm shares similarities with the Duck Hunt’s can kill confirm, as he has to knock the player into his cannonball and does have to be fairly precise in how he does this, but unlike Duck Hunt, this is easier for K. Rool. This is because he has longer, harder hitting hitboxes, a great arsenal of throws, and the cannonball travels farther and at a better arc than Duck Hunt’s can. This means when K. Rool goes to execute this combo, his opponent has to undergo a series of hard, very fast predictions, or they’ll die extremely early, as the cannonball hits hard. This will elevate K. Rool’s viability significantly, and he may yet contend for the Top 10 in the game as a result.
King Dedede — As it would turn out, Dedede will be even worse than I originally thought. Dedede will not have grab combos anymore in Smash Ultimate. Yes, I am baffled that Nintendo thought handing him a few insignificant buffs, then taking away the slightest shred of threatening tools in Dedede’s arsenal would satisfy Dedede’s prospective mains, if Dedede even has any prospective mains anymore. I guess some characters have to suck in this game for no reason? Perhaps a design decision? I don’t work for Nintendo, I couldn’t tell you.
Ken — although I technically never made a ‘prediction’ about Ken, I did compare his viability to Ryu’s when I wrote my recap on the last Smash Direct. Ken didn’t immediately seem to be better or worse than Ryu, though being an echo of Ryu, the community and myself confidently assumed the two would have comparable levels of viability. While this remains true, we can now conclude that Ryu will be slightly better than Ken. Ken is indeed slightly faster than Ryu, but Ryu is slightly stronger, and thus kills with Shoryuken kill confirms earlier than Ken does. The added power benefits Ryu more than the added mobility does for Ken. Ken, like Ryu, should still contend for a spot amongst the Top 10, but he will pretty firmly be a spot behind Ryu in the debate.