VideoGame Crippling Overspecialization: The Game
Well, the newest smash bros games have finally come, and as many will say, they are great, there's lot of fun to have...in Smash mode that's it...i won't deny that the vs is fine, combat is more fluid, and there seems that a lot of twitching was done to characters in the transition from brawl to wii u/3ds, and there were some patches to make the game more balanced...during a while anyway, but after you see past the Smash mode, you notice that the game is just lacking. Even as you start the game, you notice the almost lack of interest in giving it a good presentation, 3ds has no intro, and wii u only has a compilation of the trailers; the main menus are even blatant with it, giving smash a giant sign to call your atention while all other modes that are part of the franchise, even the ones just as old (classic for example) are thrown to an alternate section. The customization feature was poorly made, the equipment is just pointless, and it takes a really limited aproach to how it changes the stats for the characters. Classic mode also took a hit, it's just so-so in 3ds, but the wii u version becomes insulting since it just throws all the oponents it can in any stage, it doesn't matters if the characters fit the theme of the stage, is just a matter of shoving the "you can have 8 fighters at same time" in your face. The stage selection also seems to have taken an step down from the previous instalments, they come in 3 flavors: 1- blatant advertisement of the latest game in the series for that console (ex: arena ferox in 3ds despite not being that different of colosseum in wii u just to remind everyone of Fire Emblem: Awakening) 2- overly redundant (both pyrosphere and norfair in wii u even tough both are heat themed metroid stages), and 3- lack of representation to the series of the characters already there (ROB came in Brawl and still has NO stage based on one of it's games in neither version) and sometimes overlaps (wii u has 3 tloz stages, none of them for any of toon link games, while having skyloft and keep eldin bridge even tough both can represent 3rd person zelda games). And finally, there's the 2 new "modes" for the games, in 3ds, Smash Run seemed like a good idea, but the random final battle can become imposible depending on your character and picked up stats, and smash tour is just too random, making it a bad pseudo-mario party
VideoGame Ryochi's Super Smash Bros 4 review (Or: why smash 4 is the worst smash game I have ever played competitively)
This is a review on the competitive side of Smash 4. Casually I recommend it, even though its flawed.
Competitively, sigh, I'd rather play Melee and Brawl. I'm not one of those Melee fanboys who rave on and on about their precious game, I am just someone who expected a good game that can work competitively...and was disappointed.
My biggest problem with Smash 4 is the over rewarding defensive playstyles. With EVERY character. The ridiculous amount of landing lag cancels aren't helping either and some attacks just flat out have no lag (Ex: Mario's Up-smash, most down smashes in this game). I have never seen so many defensive Sonics, Foxes, and hell even Shieks in a few For Glory sessions (these characters aren't even supposed to be defensive). Thanks to this modification, I constantly have to switch to high-tiers like Diddy and Sonic and even then its hard.
You could say "Oh you just need to learn how to punish correctly." Oh really? With the ONE SECOND of lag that rolling has? I'm not joking, it is literally one second (either that or significantly lower than previous games). This causes people to dodge two attacks at once and make them hard to even touch (not impossible) sometimes. This isn't even getting into camping (ridiculous in this game) or how staying close to the ledge is more rewarding than actually fighting on the stage (I could elaborate if you guys ask), and the jabs (again just ask)
And the blast zones! Another thing that outright ruins the game for me sometimes. I remember this one instance where I backaired Mario with toon link offstage TWICE when he was 100% (I was at a high percentage too so I had rage on) and he didn't even die. Costing me the match cause I fell off (You could say that I went too deep, but that's completely disregarding how unnecessarily huge the blast zones are). A friend of mine also told me that he was still alive at 200% with Jigglypuff, the lightest character in the game.
Overall, I feel that this game, from a competitive standpoint, is a mess. Especially compared to previous games. Far too defensive for me to say I'm even having fun, and far too many questionable mechanics for me to take it seriously on a competitive level.
Unless the new patches fix things, I am not going to say that this is better than Melee or even Brawl competitively.