Tag Archives: super smash bros ultimate

Reflecting on Character Complexity in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

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Things have come a long way with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, especially with the plethora of DLC characters providing some very unique play styles. However, this also makes me think back to the first couple years of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, where I used to see the game get criticized for lacking depth pretty regularly. The argument commonly went (and to some extent still goes) that the characters are too simplistically designed, thus making many of them too similar in feel and results in less interesting gameplay. While I never shared this opinion and feel that it doesn’t track with my experience, I think it gets at one of the core challenges facing any fighting game: how do you get a diverse range of players to feel like their character choice is special enough for them to keep playing? Personally, I think Ultimate succeeds in this regard, but I think those who feel otherwise are used to games that more heavily reward them and their attitudes towards improvement.

One of my favorite characters to use is Mewtwo, and it’s because I have a fondness for the character, as opposed to viewing it from a purely competitive perspective. Even so, I’ve been trying to get better at the technical aspects of Mewtwo, and I have been overwhelmed not only by how much there is to learn, but how to incorporate them all naturally into my gameplay. Whenever I’ve seen criticisms like the ones above, I’ve thought to myself, how could anyone pick up Mewtwo and claim that you can learn everything about them in a relatively short time? How could anyone claim that Mewtwo’s play style is somehow too reminiscent of other characters?

The answer is that they’re not talking about Mewtwo at all, because Mewtwo isn’t considered a great character, generally speaking. On tier lists even after all the buffs they’ve received, you’ll often see Mewtwo placed somewhere from low to mid tier, with the occasional high-tier spot with the caveat that it would only apply if Mewtwo is mastered to the fullest extent. When choosing Mewtwo from an “I want to win” perspective, the question is simply: Is it worthwhile to learn an extremely complex and difficult character if all that effort fails to net you a top-tier character? 

Adam “Keits” Heart, who worked on Killer Instinct (2013), doesn’t think so—or rather, he doesn’t believe most players who gravitate towards complex characters would be satisfied with such a deal. In the interview above, he talks about how Iron Galaxy Studios purposely strengthened or weakened characters for the overall health of the game. A character with a much higher learning curve (Aria) was made to be relatively strong to reward the players who put in the time and effort.  Another character designed to frustrate (Aganos) was made weaker in order to avoid having players quit the game after going up against him, but with the knowledge that the character would appeal to someone. According to Keits, what’s important is not balance in the traditional sense of having an equal likelihood of winning, but rather the degree to which different characters allow different personalities to shine through. In other words, diversity in competitive play happens when characters are special enough for people to want to devote themselves.

The potential problem with Ultimate, then, was that its top echelon of characters somehow wasn’t giving certain types of players the characters or gameplay they want, and this is why certain characters have sometimes been perceived as being “shallow” in design. Lucina, for example, is a fairly straightforward character, and the absolute standard for the swordsman archetype. She can do a lot, but none of it is especially fancy. She rewards good fundamentals, but players don’t necessarily want to just hone the basics; they want to win in an exciting fashion. It’s also why defensive characters like Sonic and Pac-Man who have verifiable tournament success don’t exactly attract swathes of players eager to use them. They’re complex, but not in the “proper,” i.e. “exciting” way—unless wielded by specific players (see KEN and Tea). That excitement factor is also what creates an exception of sorts to the “complex characters are only good if they’re top-tiers” rule because whether or not the complexities or quirks result in highly transformative gameplay alters how one perceives a character.

Ultimate is often compared to its prequels, and while players of Melee and Brawl consider the differences between the two to be night and day, one thing they have in common is how often veterans of both will praise the “advanced techniques” of each game. In Melee, these are mainly in the form of universal gameplay quirks like wavedashing, dash dancing, and wavelanding, which help make the gameplay fast, frenetic, and smooth. In Brawl, it’s the character-specific advanced techniques that players love. Lucas is considered to be competitively compromised because Marth can kill him from 0% off of a single chain grab due to a strange exploit. Having a weakness this severe should theoretically scare off everyone from using him, but Lucas has extremely loyal players because the character is jam-packed with unique things only he can do, like “Zap Jump.”

That still doesn’t make Lucas a top-tier. At best, he’s considered a mid-tier. In principle, this shouldn’t be all that far from Mewtwo’s situation in Ultimate, but there’s one major difference: it gives something more concrete for players to feel like they’re taking the character so far beyond the perceptions of a Day 1 Lucas that it almost feels like a different character. In a similar vein, Luigi in Melee is not considered a top-tier, but any Luigi player will tell you that one of the reasons they use him is because he has the longest wavedash in the game. He goes from having some of the worst mobility in the game to some of the best, and it fundamentally changes how the character functions.

Mewtwo can do a lot of interesting advanced things, like abruptly change directions in the middle of charging Shadow Ball (“wavebouncing”), or cancel Shadow Ball upon landing and immediately transition into other actions, but they’re still basically the same character, with the same essential stats, strengths, and weaknesses as a Day 1 Mewtwo. The advanced techniques in Ultimate, whether they’re character-specific or universal, still stay within the boundaries of the game’s perceivable possibilities. The amount of reward I get for mastering Mewtwo’s wavebounce would be maybe a 5-10% improvement to the character overall. A Luigi wavedash, in turn, is like a 50-75% boost. It’s not even close.

Ultimate is successful at capturing a huge variety of players, and what we’ve seen are mainly specific types of players who aren’t being catered to. I think what frustrates those players of Ultimate who wish they could do more is that, in contrast to Melee with its game-altering discoveries or Brawl with its character-specific techniques, playing Ultimate is at its core about working within limitations that have very clear strengths and weaknesses. Incineroar cannot magically improve his poor ground speed the way a Melee Luigi can. You can do any move out of an initial dash, but moving in that fashion leaves you vulnerable, and the only way to mitigate it is to choose not to dash. You can have a character with millions of little intricacies and lots of undiscovered potential, but it’s likely not going to instantly turn any matchups around. Players are working within the intended system as opposed to circumventing it, and Smash as a franchise is full of veteran players who came from games that allowed them to be transformative on some level, or at least rewarded them mightily should they put effort into improving. Ultimate in competitive play is still a contest of skill, cleverness, and physical dexterity, but perhaps more satisfying for those who don’t mind moving feet instead of miles.

Mewtwo Smash Ultimate Tech: Shifted Teleport

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After messing around recently in Training Mode in Smash Ultimate, I made an interesting and useful discovery regarding Mewtwo: a simple move I’ve begun to call the “Shifted Teleport.” 

How to Do It

In Ultimate, if you dash or run at a ledge or platform edge but let go a little before you actually hit it, you’ll stop at the ledge instead of running off the platform. As your character halts their forward movement, they’ll usually go through a small stopping animation, like a skid or similar. 

In the case of Mewtwo, it’ll either start to lean their body up out of a dash, or do a little spinning animation out of a run. During this animation, if Mewtwo performs a Teleport, the game will not consider Mewtwo to be starting the teleport from the ground. Rather, because of how Mewtwo’s body is shifted forward a bit, it’ll be as if Mewtwo is Teleporting from the air, and this influences how Mewtwo exits the Teleport as well.

In the video above, you can see the difference between simply Teleporting when teetering at the ledge (Mewtwo comes out of the Teleport grounded vs. using a Shifted Teleport (Mewtwo is considered slightly above the ground and therefore gets the extra bit of a distance).

The Second Piece of the Puzzle: Teleport Shortening

The extended Teleport is a practical utilization of the Shifted Teleport, but there’s more. First, let’s look at another technique available to Teleport characters called “Teleport Shortening” or “Short Warping,” as demonstrated on Youtube by a user named Kaiser:

Essentially, if you pick the direction of your Teleport using the c-stick instead of the control stick, you exit the Teleport at a slightly shorter distance, no matter which direction you pick. The timing is a little strict, but far from impossible to pull off. As demonstrated in the video guide, this can help with things like ledge canceling, i.e. using Teleports to slip off ledges as an advanced movement technique. 

Here’s a video I uploaded showing how Shortened Teleports can help out Mewtwo on Kalos:

Notice how Mewtwo was falling off and dying, but with Shortened Teleports, things turn out differently. Also note that the angle to do these was straight down on the c-stick, 270 degrees. No need for fancy obscure angles or anything, which is a huge boon for players like me who aren’t good at being so consistently precise on the stick.

Shifting + Shortening = Even More Possibilities

Now, what happens when you combine Shifted Teleports with Shortened Teleports? Here’s one result—an easy ledge-trump method from on stage:

If you tried this from a standing position and a normal Teleport, you’d simply stay on the ground. If you do the shifted Teleport but non-shortened, you fall to your doom. It’s only by combining the two that this is possible.

Going back to ledge cancels, Mewtwo has a much more difficult time pulling them off than Palutena, and often risks self-destructing when trying. Part of this is that Mewtwo’s Teleport is much more unforgiving in terms of the precision of angles required to successfully ledge cancel. For someone like me who’s bad at consistently hitting those angles, it can feel too daunting to even attempt. But in the video below, all you have to do is hit the c-stick straight down during a Shifted + Shortened Teleport, and you get this reliable ledge cancel down-air on Battlefield (also works on Small Battlefield). 

Advantages of Shifting your Teleport

Shifted Teleports take a bit of time to set up due to the necessity of dashing and stopping, but I think it comes with a lot of benefits even before you factor in all the tech possible. 

  1. It allows for easy spacing of these techniques, because all you need to remember is “dash at ledge” instead of “stand at this exact spot, or else.” 
  2. Prior to the Teleport, you’re still considered grounded, so there’s less of a risk compared to being in the air or off-stage. 
  3. You’re facing forwards (as opposed to backwards), which can be helpful depending on the situation. 
  4. If done from a platform, you can safely threaten the ledge from a farther position. 
  5. You can always choose not to do the Shifted Teleport and do any number of other options: shield, jump away, etc. It’s fairly non-committal.

More Research Needed

I’ve only tested Shifted Teleports a little bit, so I think there’s a lot more to discover. For one thing, this isn’t exclusive to Mewtwo, and I’ve found that the shift you get from dashing at ledges affects at least Sheik and Pikachu. There are also other stages to practice on.

I’ll be uploading all future Mewtwo clips (including all of the above) into a Youtube playlist, so it should be easy to keep track. In addition all the Shifted Teleport stuff, I even have a couple other things:

Happy labbing!

Away with Ads: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for November 2021

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Readers may have noticed something different this month: Ogiue Maniax is now ad-free! And right in time for this blog’s anniversary!

I felt that the ads were getting more and more intrusive on the blog if you don’t use any sort of ad block, so I’ve been wanting to do something for a while now.

I’ve also had my Patreon going for more than a few years now, and I wanted the money to go more directly to giving my readers a better experience when reading my posts. I’m thankful to my patrons for allowing me to talk about the new anime season or giant robots or whatever, with special gratitude to the following this month:

General:

Ko Ransom

Diogo Prado

Alex

Dsy

Sue Hopkins fans:

Serxeid

Hato Kenjirou fans:

Elizabeth

Yajima Mirei fans:

Machi-Kurada

Blog highlights from October:

The Anime THEY Don’t Want You to Know About: Makyou Densetsu Acrobunch

I reviewed a lesser known but quite peculiar mecha anime from the 1980s.

The Best Sports Manga You’re Not Reading: Shoujo Fight

My long overdue general review of thia fantastic volleyball manga.

Sora in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Gameplay Thoughts

My personal take on the style and potential of the final DLC character.

Hashikko Ensemble

Chapter 45 might just be my favorite chapter to date. Things are coming to a head between Akira and Jin!

Kio Shimoku’s Twitter has been buzzing with preparation for both his collected-volume releases in September. In a rare treat, he’s actually been retweeting fans who are supporting both Spotted Flower and Hashikko Ensemble, which is how I got retweeted by the man himself!

Apartment 507

A look at the farewell episode for Jigen Daisuke’s retiring veteran voice actor in Lupin III.

Closing

The two things that have my attention as of late are the final Hakai-oh: Gaogaigar vs. Betterman novel and Super Robot Wars 30, which features that very same story. I’m in a constant internal struggle as to which I prioritize. Do I spoil the novel or the game?

This month is also Anime NYC, and I’ll likely end up going. It’s smaller than New York Comic Con, so I predict it’ll be safer, but it’ll still be important to exercise best COVID-19 prevention practices. Remember, vaccinations will be required!

Sora in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Gameplay Thoughts

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Sora was the most desired character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. When you have a character with so wide an appeal, it behooves the creators to make him accessible to the fans eager to use him. In this respect, I think Sakurai and his team have succeeded in spades, but I’ve also been watching the pros try their hands at Sora, and I’ve noticed that the character seems to have a very high ceiling for what is possible. From this, I find that Sora is built very firmly on a classic concept of game design: easy to learn, but difficult to master.

Surprisingly, that combination isn’t all that common among characters in Smash—all the more odd because it’s a franchise built around that very idea. Often, characters who are simple to pick up don’t get absurdly tricky at higher levels, and the characters who are difficult to get the hang of remain complicated even at higher levels of play. Sora, in contrast, has a relatively simple and easy-to-understand game plan, but the room for optimization looks endless. 

Sora’s enormously generous air mobility and the ease by which he can get his Kingdom Hearts–esque combos started (neutral air, forward air, and down tilt are all strong tools) means that neutral isn’t overly complicated. At the same time, the ability to delay or interrupt hits means that players will likely get better and better at maximizing damage. His special moves also allow players to do a lot right off the bat, but their intricacies are deep. The very fact that his neutral special, Magic, switches between three very different attacks every time you hit the B button makes it so that players have to subtly change strategies every time they use the move.

One thing that’s very unusual about Sora is his movement. Overall, he’s below average in nearly every mobility category, but a combination of an enormous second jump reminiscent of Ness and Mewtwo—as well as a level of floatiness that’s strange even compared to other generally similar characters—means that Sora ironically can feel more strange to those with lots of Smash experience. As a Mewtwo user myself, one would think that Sora would feel right at home, but even I found the character’s physics to be bizarre at first blush. On a technical level, this is owing to a combination of very low fall speed and extremely low gravity, a stat that determines how quickly a character hits their top vertical speed in the air. The result is a character who just ends up spending a lot of time in the air. His high-altitude juggling and deep offstage edgeguarding are, as expected, both incredibly powerful.

At the same time, Sora doesn’t look like a slouch on the ground either. What I find is that, due to the contrast between his mediocre-yet-funky mobility and the relative safety of his disjointed Keyblade attacks, Sora is neither especially good nor especially bad at getting in on his opponents. Against those who like to fight up close, Sora should have no trouble making it happen. In fact, more often I could see the fight coming to him. And against characters who like to play more of a bait-and-punish style, Sora can contend decently well. It’s the strong zoners, the ones who excel at running away and have either one or more long-range tool, who can give Sora trouble. From a Mewtwo perspective, I can see my character doing well because of a combination of Shadow Ball and just across-the-board superior mobility that allows Mewtwo to both play keepaway and chase Sora down in the air, which is supposed to be Sora’s specialty. 

I predict Sora is going to get better and better over the course of Ultimate competitive play, but he won’t necessarily be able to ignore his weaknesses the same way other characters can. He might always have at least a few bad matchups where he has trouble getting his game plan started, but against most of the cast, Sora shouldn’t have much trouble playing Kingdom Hearts in Smash. And he’ll always be that accessible character who eases people into Smash but provides ample room for players to grow, and for the experts to flex their skills.

Crossover x Crossover: Sora in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

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I truly didn’t think it was possible. 

Knowing Disney and knowing Square-Enix, the amount of hurdles it must have taken for Smash Bros. director Sakurai Masahiro to bring Sora into the greatest and most celebrated gathering of video game icons is a feat beyond Herculean. But this is a tale as old as Smash itself: every time I think there’s a ceiling, Sakurai manages to bust right through if given enough time. Whether it’s “This character wouldn’t work as a fighter!” or “That company would never let their baby go anywhere!” the only limit left is “They have to actually be actively video game–related (sorry, Goku).

I’m pretty neutral when it comes to Kingdom Hearts, having only experienced the game passively through others—notably watching one friend fight Sephiroth over and over because he enjoyed the boss encounter that much. However, even if I don’t have a strong affinity for Sora myself, I can feel the love from all the fans, the creators, and the Smash developers. Everything about the way Sora moves in the Smash Ultimate footage we’ve seen screams care and attention to detail, whether it’s the swift swings of his Keyblade to mimic the play style of the source games or the unique buoyancy of his jumps, it’s as if the team wants you to genuinely feel like you’re controlling Sora in an exciting, new setting. 

I just know the way I felt seeing Mega Man’s helmet warp onto his head for the Smash 4 trailer over eight years ago is the same as how many felt yesterday seeing that Mickey keychain dangling. Though, as much as I love Mega Man music, having Sora’s trailer feature an instrumental version of Utada Hikaru’s “Hikari”/”Simple and Clean” hits differently. It’s a shame that they couldn’t get it into Smash Ultimate itself.

In his final presentation, Sakurai draws attention to the fact that it’s Kingdom Hearts I Sora, and I think there’s a real significance to that. Back in the Smash 4 days, there was concern among fans that if Pac-Man were to actually get into Smash, it would be his modernized Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures iteration as opposed to his retro design. After all, it’s the new thing, and they would want to synergize with the current stuff, right? But Pac-Man came in as classic 1980s Pac-Man, and I’d like to think it’s because Sakurai understands where the love for the character lies. While Sora’s older selves in the sequels wouldn’t be nearly as divisive as Ghostly Adventures Pac-Man, it feels as if the Kingdom hearts I Sora embodies fans’ youth and nostalgia in a way his later designs would. 

What a ride, and what a way to send off Smash Ultimate. Even if he wasn’t my dream pick, Sora feels all too appropriate as the bookend to a nearly four-year journey that’s seen the world go through the unimaginable as once-farfetched roster choices kept getting in one after the other. And while speculation doesn’t come with actual stakes and anticipation anymore, I’ll still keep thinking of ideas for new characters because there’s still plenty of video game history to tap into. Fans find in Smash Bros. comfort and a spirit of genuine love for video games in an increasingly cynical world. Thank you, Sakurai.

PS: I’m looking forward to that next balance patch, though. (Mewtwo buffs prayer circle.)

Smash Ultimate and the Shmup Life of Jigglypuff

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I like watching Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournaments, but it’s only over the past year that I’ve started watching individual streamers more—chalk it up to a pandemic. During this time, one player I’ve been enjoying is Super Smash Bros. Melee “god” Hungrybox try his hand at Ultimate as a Jigglypuff main. But while a part of the fun is in seeing a top Melee player use a heavily toned down version of his signature character to become a low-tier hero, I’d felt that there was also something inherently compelling about Jigglypuff itself. Then, realization hit me last year as I watched the Touhou game Shoot the Bullet during Summer Games Done Quick 2020: Jigglypuff in Ultimate is a lot like a ship in a shoot ‘em up boss fight.

Shmups are a genre where your character is besieged every level by an endless procession of enemy ships and projectiles, generally culminating against a boss character of some kind. Compounding the difficulty is the fact that your playable unit will typically die in one hit, so the ability to evade and barely make it out of harm’s way is key to success—especially if you’re playing for some kind of record or achievement. 

Jigglypuff in Ultimate is in a similar position. It excels in moving back and forth through the air thanks to a high air speed, multiple jumps, and a slow fall speed. Being the second lightest in the game means it can’t withstand many attacks, but its small size means being able to dodge things other characters can’t. The character also has short reach on its attacks, thus any opponent with projectiles or a long weapon like a sword presents a daunting wall that Jigglypuff must surmount through effective weaving. Like the heroine Aya in Shoot the Bullet, there is a clear edge that Jigglypuff’s foes have in the fight, in that their ability to threaten and cover space is something Jigglypuff cannot match.

This is somewhat different in Melee due to the strength of Jigglypuff’s back-air. In that environment, it’s a deceptively far-reaching attack that makes Jigglypuff the “wall” that players must deal with instead of the other way around. Jigglypuff’s ability to throw out repeated beefy back-airs while juking is even referred to as the “wall of pain.” Jigglypuff in Ultimate not only has less range, but the character automatically turns around after throwing a back-air out, preventing the ability to string multiple back-airs together. 

Instead, Jigglypuff must bob and dance, hoping to be in the right place at the right time to nickel and dime the opponent without overextending. While it has an ace in the hole in the form of Rest, it’s hard to hit and requires a lot of planning and game sense (and maybe even a bit of luck). Every mistake is a costly one, and the frail nature of the character means defeat is often snatched from the jaws of victory. 

Does this make for a particularly strong character? Probably not. But it sure makes for a tense and exciting viewing experience, and it’s why I keep watching Hungrybox, as well as other Puff mains like Bassmage. Also, when I think about it, this would also make a great template for a Touhou character…

PS: If I ever had the chance to rebalance Jigglypuff to be stronger, I’d give Jigglypuff a kill throw because being such an air-focused character means shielding is especially effective against it. Due to its floatiness, slow ground speed, and lack of range, Jigglypuff also has a harder time landing grabs—so I think it’d still be fair.

Playing Tekken and Preventing Tekken: Thoughts on Kazuya Matchups in Smash Ultimate

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Kazuya Mishima has been released as Smash Ultimate DLC, and the general consensus (whether you like his inclusion or not) is that Kazuya plays like he was pulled straight from Tekken. But more than just the superficial replication of his moves and the characteristic look of Tekken combos, what I’m coming to understand is that even the fighting game series’s simultaneous rock-paper-scissors scenarios (a hallmark of 3D fighters) is approximated through the Smash engine. Along with the fact that his moveset successfully makes him a vicious defensive monster, this makes it so that in order to fight Kazuya, you have to ask the following: How good is your character “playing” and “preventing” Tekken?”

In the Kazuya gameplay introduction video by Sakurai (above), he explains that Tekken is a game of spacing involving “highs,” “mids,” and “lows.” Spacing (maai in Japanese) is about trying to move into your favorable range while avoiding your opponent’s. High attacks are generally quick but can be both blocked high and avoided entirely by crouching. Mid attacks are often powerful combo starters but are on the slower side—they can be blocked high but not low. Low attacks must be blocked low but can be avoided by jumping.

In the context of Smash Ultimate, spacing is present but the platformer style of gameplay makes it inherently different. As for the high/mid/low system, it simply doesn’t exist. A shield is a shield, and you don’t block “high” or “low.” However, when you look at Kazuya’s attacks, the corresponding mix of hitboxes, intangibility, and armor frames (on top of Kazuya’s passive armor against weak attacks) result in attacks that ostensibly can be blocked or prevented in ways that vaguely resemble Tekken. How you angle your shield, whether you can crouch or hop over certain attacks, and other factors come into consideration when you have to fight Kazuya up close.

This is why I’ve begun to think of a character’s “comfort level” when fighting Kazuya. It’s less a matter of how good or bad their matchup is against him and more about how much fighting him can feel awkward because of his particular traits. Specifically, it’s about gauging both the ability to scrap with him if necessary and  to avoid that situation as much as possible. I’m not a Kazuya or Tekken expert by any means, but here are some examples of what I think in regards to certain characters’ “Tekken” and “anti-Tekken” capacities:

Kazuya is inevitably a 10/10 when it comes to playing Tekken, but a -1/10 when it comes to preventing Tekken. The former is obvious, while the latter has to do with the fact that he has some tools to keep the fight out of Tekken range, but they’re limited in use and he doesn’t really want to stay away anyway.

Kirby can go toe-to-toe with Kazuya surprisingly well given his solid up-close frame data and his crouch, which allows him to actually duck under Electric Wind God Fist. In terms of playing Tekken, he does okay—probably a 6/10. At the same time, Kirby is fairly slow and stubby-limbed, so Kirby is kind of forced to confront Kazuya directly—which means he’s probably a 2/10 at preventing Tekken.

Mewtwo has mobility and tricky attacks (like Shadow Ball and Disable) to keep Kazuya at bay, as well as a vicious edgeguarding game, meaning its ability to prevent Tekken is quite high—like a 7/10 or 8/10. But once Kazuya is in, Mewtwo’s relatively lackluster up-close frame data, along with his huge body means Mewtwo can become a giant punching bag if it gets complacent: 5/10 at best (and probably worse).

The other FGC characters—Ryu, Ken, and Terry—do not come from 3D fighting games, but their auto-turnaround and their ability to play footsies up-close means that they have special properties that make fighting Kazuya a profoundly different experience compared to if other characters take him on. I would probably give all of them high values for playing Tekken (at least 8/10) while not playing it varies between each of those characters’ due to their unique strengths and weaknesses.

So where do you think your Smash character falls on the Kazuya scales? If you have thoughts, feel free to leave a comment.

Kazuya Mishima in Smash Ultimate: I Sensed This Coming

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I’ve been going a little hog wild with the Smash Bros. DLC posts lately, devoting entries to Goro, Kerrigan, and Nightmare just in the past couple weeks. But one thing I’ve felt for a while is that Smash was lacking a representative for 3D fighting games. It’s why I tried to come up with a moveset for Akira Yuki from Virtua Fighter before he was revealed as an Assist Trophy in Ultimate. Now, we have our answer: Kazuya Mishima from Tekken.

While I never made any formal blog posts about it, I did entertain the notion in my Min Min analysis. I also made a couple of tweets last year arguing in favor of Kazuya:

Over time, what I’ve wanted to see out of Smash more than even my dream character picks (NiGHTS is the only one remaining, really) is to have it reflect a greater breadth of gaming: genres like the beat ‘em up and the RTS, and even influential consoles like the Atari 2600 and the Commodore 64. This includes 3D fighters. While 2D and 3D fighting games look similar from a distance, they’re actually two very different gameplay experiences. I’m glad for the inclusion of Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter and Terry Bogard from Fatal Fury, but I found it odd that one side of the fighting game genre was so lopsided in Smash. 

I know very little about Tekken other than having a general sense of how the game plays at a casual level, as well as familiarity with most of the characters through pop culture osmosis. From what I’ve seen of people’s initial reactions, Kazuya in Smash comes across as somehow having been transplanted straight from his source games into this new environment. We don’t have any detailed gameplay explanations to reference (the Kazuya showcase will air on the 28th of June), but if it was challenging enough to convert Tekken characters into 2D for Street Fighter x Tekken, I wonder how Sakurai and his team have made Kazuya work. It feels harder to translate Tekken moves to Smash compared to Street Fighter or Fatal Fury/King of Fighters.

Speaking of adapting fighting game characters to Smash, I realized a huge distinction between them and most of the roster: A lot of characters come from singleplayer games where the goal is for them to be relatively simple to use, and Smash movesets are designed relative to that. Not so with Kazuya and pals. In fact, Kazuya and the other Mishimas are generally considered among the hardest characters to master in Tekken. I think it’s why they can be so polarizing when in this crossover context.

Incidentally, the Kazuya trailer begins with Kazuya tossing Ganondorf off a cliff. Kazuya has a move called the Demon God Fist, or Majinken. Ganondorf’s neutral special, Warlock Punch, is actually also called Majinken in Japanese, albeit with a slight kanji difference. In other words, it was a battle of Demon Fists, and Kazuya won.

Welcome to Kazuya, and remember: the most important thing to come out of this is that the Banjo & Kazuya Mishima gag is real now.

Nightmare (Soulcalibur) for Super Smash Bros.

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A Truly Flagship Video Game Villain

Villain characters have been a great addition to the Super Smash Bros. franchise, starting with Bowser in Melee and more recently with the inclusion of Ridley, King K. Rool, and Sephiroth in Ultimate. In anticipation of E3 and the official Nintendo Direct scheduled for June 15, I’ve been making blog posts about possible antagonist characters I think would fit well. But as cool as Goro and Kerrigan would be, what occurred to me is that neither is necessarily the unquestioned face of the video games they represent. Mortal Kombat is Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Kerrigan can make a better case, but she’s not necessarily the first character people think of.

However, there is a particular case I think could fit my self-imposed criteria of being a bad guy while also being a game franchise’s most iconic mascot character: Nightmare from Soulcalibur. Not only does he wield Soul Edge, the demonic weapon that is the primary catalyst for the game’s story, he’s also literally in the logo of the Soulcalibur development team, Project Soul.

Another Swordsman, But…

One potential strike against Nightmare is Ultimate is a game that sometimes gets criticized for featuring too many swords. But Nightmare has so much going for him aesthetically, as well as in terms of possible gameplay mechanics and features that he could successfully fill a space that’s only partially covered by the likes of Ike and maybe Ganondorf: a true superheavy swordsman.

Nightmare’s Soul Edge is like a combination of Ike’s Ragnell and Cloud’s Buster Sword, only bigger. It’s this massive hunk of evil energy in the form of a two-handed blade, and it looks menacing in a way that even Sephiroth’s Masamune can’t quite compare. The menacing march of a character clad in armor who’s not as slow as one might expect could also add a quality of intimidation ideal for heavies. You know his dash attack would be that hilarious dropkick.

Potential Gameplay

Moveset-wise, it’s harder to establish what’s a “special move” vs. a “normal move” compared to 2D fighting game characters, but I think Nightmare could bring a lot of Soulcalibur mechanics to Smash. While the Soul Charge boost could be nice, Nightmare in Soulcalibur VI has a unique mechanic called “Terror Charge.” A mode that enhances his attacks in different ways, Terror Change can be activated either independently like a powerup on command, or it can be triggered by having the opponent hit Nightmare during specific armored moves. 

The two things Terror Charge might most closely resemble are 1) Incineroar’s Revenge (a counter that absorbs a plow to power up the next attack) and 2) Lucario in Project M, who could power up its aura during combos. Rather than being a comeback mechanic or even a snowball mechanic, Terror Charge would be a strategic tool that is fully controlled by the player and can apply to a variety of situations. Other folks more intimately familiar with how Nightmare plays can give a more in-depth moveset idea:

Who Else?

Nightmare isn’t the only villain who’s also the key figure in a game series—fellow Namco character Heihachi Mishima from Tekken could also make the case. Are there any other truly flagship villains out there?

Goro (Mortal Kombat) for Super Smash Bros.

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In discussions of Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC characters, the question is often “what character do you want?” rather than “what kind of character do you want?” But pro Ultimate player Tweek has professed on his podcast his desire to see a genuine heavy-style character to be one of the last two DLC characters—someone who embodies, in his words,  the “heavy lifestyle.”

It is true that we haven’t seen any Bowser-esque characters among any Smash DLC since even Smash 4, and so I started to think about who would fit well while still bringing something to the table in terms of significance and/or interesting gameplay. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that Goro from Mortal Kombat would be a great idea for a heavy DLC character. While 2D fighting games have their fair share of representatives now (between Ryu, Ken, and Terry Bogard), I think Goro gives us a new villain character (though arguably more of a tweener like Mewtwo) who represents another long-standing series with cultural influence.

I haven’t played any Mortal Kombat games for the past…twenty years…so I’m not terribly familiar with how Goro’s play style has changed or evolved as the games themselves have gone through multiple directions. But the image of Goro is ever-present as a big, nasty, four-armed bruiser who can grab you with two hands and pummel you with the other two. He can shoot fireballs, leap high into the air and land with a stomp (perfect for a Smash-style recovery move), and just has an imposing aura that would bring a lot of personality. I feel like I can easily picture Goro’s gameplay in my mind, and it looks cool: you think you can escape him, but his surprising speed and even his powerful projectile would make it feel like you only run for so long.

In terms of appearance, I think it’d be awesome if Goro’s original stop-motion, clay-model aesthetic could be maintained for his entry into Smash. It would make him visually pop in a way no other character does. That said, I’d understand if they went for something more current-looking, as that’s the direction Mortal Kombat has gone in general. With eight costumes per character, both could be possible, but I still wonder which would be the default. My preference would be old-school.

There’s also the question of Mortal Kombat’s signature selling point: blood-and-guts gore. That simply would not pass muster in Smash, but I think Goro could still make it through intact. He can come across as hyper-violent and nasty, but I think that could be conveyed without needing to portray actual viscera flying and bone-breaking attacks. Fatalities would still be a must, but they’d be more exaggerated and extreme than brutal. 

I have no close attachment to Goro as a character, but I just think he would successfully capture the “heavy character” feel in a way few others could, while also fitting well into Smash Bros. gameplay. And i mean, don’t you want someone to say “EXCELLENT” every time he uppercuts his opponents?