10 Things I Hate About Smash 4

  Almost two months and several hundred hours later, it looks like my personal honeymoon period with Super Smash Bros. 4 is finally over. Don't get me wrong, Smash 4 is a great game and I fucking love it. There are so many things about this game that are fantastic. But I won't be talking about those things today on account of my heart being filled with hate.

  As a disclaimer before I get on with the list: I'm what some people would call a “hardcore” Smash player. That means I don't play with items on, and I only play on stages with basic layouts. I only say this because some of these critiques may not apply to people who play Smash as more of a party game. That and some “casual” Smash fans seem to have a weird animosity towards people who play like I do, so if that's the case take this list with a grain of salt. I imagine the stigma against “hardcore” players stems from the fact that everytime someone plays Smash without items on Masahiro Sakurai personally drowns a puppy.

  Anyways, on with the list:

1. Shielding is too safe

  So what do I mean by "too safe"? Well, in past Smash games there was a mechanic called "shield stun". Basically when someone attacked you while shielding there was a slight delay before you could drop the shield, or roll, or whatever. Smash 4 doesn't have that. What this means is that someone could, say, block an attack with their shield, drop the shield, and immediately counterattack (play against a level 9 CPU to see this in action). This makes shielding way more effective in Smash 4 then it used to be. Shielding was sort of a last resort thing in previous games; it was almost always a better option to roll or try to move out of the way of an attack. The elimination of shield stun affects Smash 4's gameplay in a couple of ways:

1. It makes aggressive play much easier to punish, thus reducing that style's effectiveness.

2. It makes defensive play much more simple. Rolling and dodging are more dynamic, choice based mechanics that make the game more complex and interesting. Rolling is kind of pointless now; just shield and counter instead.

  In addition, the concept of approaching a player is much less dynamic than it used to be. Previous titles gave you plenty of options: do a dash attack, short hop and do an aerial, use projectiles to cover an approach, roll behind the player, etc. When you approach a player in Smash 4 one of two things happen: A) You attack, the player shields, then punishes, or B) You run up, they attempt to stop your advance with an attack, you shield then punish.

  The elimination of shield stun, in my opinion, really limits your options, thus making the game less interesting and therefore worse.

2. The "air game" is wonky as fuck

  I understand that the above statement is kind of vague. By "air game" I mean anything a player can do while not on the ground, and by "wonky" I mean it's fucked up. This point is probably my biggest and most complex issue with the game, so I'll be breaking it down into a couple of topics:

A. The new ledge mechanics

  Let's start with something that I wouldn't have a problem with if the rest of the air game was better: the new ledge mechanics. In previous games only one player could hang off the stage's ledge at any given time. This means that if, say, a player was attempting to recover and grab on to a ledge, another player could hop off the side and grab the ledge. In this situation the recovering player would just be screwed. This is called "edge hogging" and its lame. 

  In the new system, players push other players off the ledge when they grab on to it, thus eliminating edge hogging, and the game is better for it. In addition, ledge "sweet spots" (the distance you have to be from a ledge to grab on to it) have been increased, thus making it significantly easier to get back on to the stage after you've been knocked off. Again, not a problem in and of itself, but it plays into my next point...

B. Recovering is really easy in this game

  This is the byproduct of a couple of things. First, most of the existing characters have had their jumps and recovery moves buffed. Fair enough. Second, most of the new characters have really great recoveries. Villager and Pac-Man's recoveries in particular are both insane, to the point where I think they probably should have been nerfed. Third, aerial DI has been buffed for almost all characters. Aerial DI (or directional input) is when you can push the stick in a direction whilst in the air and you'll sort of "float" in that direction. This aids greatly in recovery. In addition, while Smash 4's speed is more akin to Melee, character's fall speed is more similar to Brawl (in that its slower), which means that with better DI and recovery most characters can cover huge amounts of horizontal space while in the air. Combine all these elements with the changes to the ledge mechanics and you'll see that the process of getting back to the ledge is extremely easy. "Okay, so almost every character in Smash 4 has amazing recovery. Why is that a huge problem?" I pretend you ask. Patience, young one. It's all going to make sense in the end.

C. Smash 4's stages are wider than my fat ass

  Think of every Smash stage as a box. If your character ever goes outside that box, you die. The line created by the box is called the "blast line" and the area outside of the box is known as the "blast zone". Smash 4's stages are absurdly wide, which means that you're going to have to hit your enemy quite far in order to guarantee a KO.

  Again, not really that big of a problem itself. The problem arises when you combine this fact with my previous points. Recovery is so good in this game that I'm fairly certain any member of the cast (besides Little Mac) could be put exactly on the blast line and make it all the way back to the stage. This actually shouldn't be that big of a deal. It seems like the design is trying to promote aggressive "edge guarding" wherein you hit an opponent off the stage, pursue them through the air, and finish them off with aerials. Seems pretty cool to me. Except...

D. Air dodging is OP as fuck

  Have you ever grabbed a CPU in Smash 4 and thrown them upwards? "Time to follow up with some aerials." You thought. What a poor, naive child you were. You jumped and used your up aerial. "Oh, he air dodged and fell through me. Let me hit him with my down aerial when he comes out of the dodge...oh, he dodged that too." Look, I'm not saying we need to go back to Melee's 'one air dodge per jump' rule. But could you put the air dodge on a cooldown or something? I'm confident that if you spammed the button a player could be in the invincible dodge animation close to 85% of the time they were in the air. Now the puzzle finally comes together.

  Here's how it happens every single time: You knock someone off the side of the stage. The player lazily floats twelve miles back to the stage. You jump off the side and try to Fair the asshole as he comes back. Air dodge. The player passes through you horizontally. You attempt to Bair. Air dodge. Mr. Dickhead uses his Up+B and grabs the ledge, then rolls off the ledge into the middle of the stage. Welcome back to square one.

  This means you have to hit your enemy into either the horizontal or vertical blast zones or nothing happens. With the decreased knockback of a lot of Smash 4's moves, this process can be extremely tedious. For comparison, pro Melee matches use 4 stocks. Brawl uses 3. Smash 4 uses 2, and even those matches take roughly six months.

  All this to say that varying elements combine to make KOing people incredibly difficult and tedious. Combine this with an over emphasis on defense and lack of solid approaching options and you have a game that can very quickly turn into a durdley slog. I'm not saying Melee's super twitchy gameplay was optimal even if I did find Brawl painfully sluggish. At first glance, Smash 4 seems to find the perfect balance between these two extremes. But the sad fact is that it doesn't, and I think that's a bummer.

3. 80% of Smash 4's stages are janky pieces of shit

  I get that not everyone enjoys playing Smash the way I do. That's great. I love that different people can play the game in different ways and have fun. But do even "casual" players like pig shit stages like Pac-Land, 75 m, or Flat Zone X? I'm not asking for every stage to be a simple collection of platforms, but I think its very reasonable to ask for more than three. Because that's all we got. Three stages free of any bullshit whatsoever. Final D. Battlefield. Smashville. If that sounds familiar its because Brawl also had three competitive stages. Final D. Battlefield. Smashville. I've been playing those three stages for half a fucking decade at this point. To be fair there are a couple other stages that may possibly fit the bill:

-Lylat Cruise: Perfectly fine, but the stage tilts back and forth, which is a little weird. Still probably fine.

-Kongo Jungle: The layout is fine, but the fact that you can actually jump through the bottom of the main platform makes this stage pretty derpy.

-Windy Hill Zone: I like the layout of the stage, but the super low vertical blast zones, camper friendly windmill, and the bumpers on either side of the stage (which can kill you) means this stage isn't ready for primetime.

-Town and City: Again, fine. But the stage shifts, which means that the platforms on the left and right sides will quickly pull away at random intervals. At which point you're fucked.

-Pyrosphere: Great stage. Except for Ridley. You know, the giant pterodactyl that flies around shooting fireballs at you. That guy.

-Skyworld: No.

-Dr. Wiley's Castle: Would be fine if the higher platforms didn't randomly get shot into space every 12 seconds. Also the Yellow Devil.

-Castle Siege: See Town and City.

  I'm sorry. There are FOUR playable stages. My bad. Except Lylat Cruise was also in Brawl. So we got a grand total of zero new competitive stages. Thanks, Sakurai. You're like the Japanese Santa Claus.

4. Too many characters were cut from Brawl

  It's a sad fact of life that every Smash game is going to cut some characters out of the roster (except Melee, of course). Let's take a look back at which characters haven't made the grade:

Melee > Brawl:

-Mewtwo

-Roy (Marth clone)

-Dr. Mario (Mario clone)

-Pichu (Pikachu clone)

  With the exception of Mewtwo these cuts are all fairly acceptable. I don't think anyone is clamoring for Pichu to make a grand return. Now let's look at Brawl to Smash 4:

Brawl > Smash 4:

-Wolf

-Lucas

-Snake

-Ice Climbers

-Ivysaur

-Squirtle

  So that's six. Some people would argue that Wolf and Lucas are clones, but I tend to disagree. Each character's special moves were similar to their 'parent' character, but were different enough, and they both had unique physical movesets and character physics. Since I count them as unique, that's six cut characters, and nary a replacement for any of them. I guess if you mained one of those characters in Brawl you're just shit out of luck.

  At least they put in Wii Fit Trainer, though. Thank god for that. The best we can hope for is that some of these characters get added back in as DLC or something, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

5. Ganondorf still doesn't have his own moveset

  What the fuck Sakurai? Three games in and you still can't give this poor bastard his own moveset? He's the main antagonist of one of your most popular and well respected franchises. Why was he a Captain Falcon clone to begin with? So you can make the Ice Climbers, Wii Fit Trainer, and the cunting Duck Hunt dog unique characters but can't do that for one of the greatest video game villains of all time?

  I know what you're saying: "But I like Ganondorf! You can't cut him! Who will I play?" How about Black Shadow?

  Shit, there's a villain in F-Zero who is an actual clone of Captain Falcon. Give the moveset to one of those guys.

  I don't think the 'Dorf has ever appeared in a game without a projectile or a weapon of some kind. So let's just have him punch people. Fucking awesome.

6. Smash Tour is a pile of dicks

  I get it. I'm not the target audience for Smash Tour. But damn, it is fucking painful to play. I wasn't the world's biggest fan of Smash Run, but I'd rather play that mode 100 times before I play a Smash Tour again.

  It's a combination of a couple things, really. All the pieces move at once, which makes the whole thing feel like a messy goat fuck. The items add an unnecessary complexity to what should be a simple party game. Some of the items are absurdly overpowered (fuck you, Wolfen) whilst some of them do jack shit. The boards are cluttered and completely free of charm. The matches are extremely short stock matches, which means you can win (or at least not lose) by being a campy douchebag. You can't pick which character you want to play with, so half the time you'll be playing as someone you don't like using (fun!!).

  I could go on, but I won't bother. Again, this mode was obviously targeted at the party game crowd, which is fine. But does anyone like this mode? It's poorly thought out and was just a complete waste of resources.

7. Unlocking all the custom moves is a tedious slog

  The addition of custom moves was one of the things I was most looking forward to in Smash 4, and I think the moves themselves were handled really well. They add a lot of dimension to the game, and are fairly well balanced. Too bad the process of unlocking them is the worse thing since AIDS.

  Custom moves should have either been unlocked from the start, or unlocking them should have been a relatively straightforward process. "Beat Classic with a character to unlock one set of moves, beat all-star with that character to unlock the other" would have been totally acceptable. Instead the moves are unlocked via random drops, which is always shit. Not only that, but the drops you get can either be pieces of equipment, a Mii costume, a Mii hat, or custom moves. On the off chance that you actually do get a custom move, its possible to get a move THAT YOU ALREADY HAVE. I've been playing this game for close to 350 (!!) hours and I've got a little over 60% of the moves. What a fucking nightmare.

8. The menus are crap

  "I would like to play trophy rush." You say to yourself for some reason. That's a simple enough process. Press start. Go to "Games and More." Go to "Vault". Go to "Trophies". Go to "Trophy Rush". Sorry, did I say that would be simple? I get there's a lot of modes, but sweet baby Jesus, these are some of the clunkiest and most unwieldy menus I've seen in a while. A lot of the buttons are oddly shaped and laid out in an asymmetrical fashion, meaning that sometimes I'm not sure what direction I need to press in order to get to a given button. Its a perfect example of form over function.

  It might seem like I'm nitpicking, but what can I say? I'm a stickler for good menus. Maybe they're supposed to be navigated via the touchscreen on the gamepad. Oh, wait. You can't do that. Wat.

9. The 3DS port was ultimately pointless

  I'll admit I was initially really excited by the concept of Smash on the go, but since the Wii U version came out little 'ol Smash 3DS has been quietly collecting dust. I'm sure some people got more mileage out of it then me, I'm a friendless loser who doesn't leave my house, for one. And playing video games in a car or airplane makes me want to hurl, so that's out. There's something about playing Smash on a big TV while chilling out on the couch that just feels right. Regardless, I can't shake the feeling that I paid $40 dollars for early (and inferior) access to the Wii U version.

  Even if you do love the 3DS version, don't you think it would've been better if all those resources just went to making the Wii U version a better game? They could have put in more stages. Maybe a few extra characters. More single player modes. Someone could have sat down and designed some menus that weren't dog shit. A boy can only dream.

10. The single player content isn't very good

  I don't think any Smash game has ever had stellar single player content, but Smash 4 is particularly lackluster in this regard. The thing is, I don't even really have that big of a problem with what's here already. I do, however, have a problem with the way single player is structured.

  Let's say I want to unlock some special moves. This means I'm going to need to grind for equipment drops (hooray!!). There are three ways to do this effectively. Master Orders. Crazy Orders. Trophy Rush. Master Orders is going to cost 100-1k gold each time you play. Crazy Orders is going to cost 5k or a Crazy Orders ticket. Trophy Rush costs 900 a pop.

  "Okay, let's do some Crazy Orders."

  "All right, that's 5k."

  "I don't have 5k."

  "Do you have a ticket?"

  "No. How do I get money and/or a ticket?"

  "Well, you could play through classic. You get 500ish gold each time you play and you'll find a ticket maybe once every 4 times you do it."

  "That seems like a lot of work. Is there anyway to do this faster?"

  "You could play classic at a higher difficulty. You get more gold and crazy tickets drop more."

  "Fair enough. How do I play classic on a higher difficulty mode?"

  "You pay 1k."

  "Wat."

  What is this Xzibit bullshit? So you're telling me that in order to grind for customs/CDs/hats/whatever I have to grind for gold?

  This is Smash, not World of fucking Warcraft. You're not trying to cheat me out of subscription money, Sakurai. Fuck. Trophy Rush I kind of get, but if I don't have any money I'm shut out of, like, half of the modes in the game.

  "You could always play Smash Tour. That's free and drops pretty good stuff."

  "Fuck off, asshole."

In conclusion...

  I know I've done a lot of bitching today, but I really do love Smash 4 despite its faults. I would highly suggest purchasing it if you're on the fence. And buy a Wii U while you're at it. Its a cool system.

  I recall something I said when I first played Smash 4's demo:

  "This is my favorite in the series. This game is everything I want the series to be."

  Even with all of it's problems, I have to agree with the first part of my statement. Despite its flaws, this game is a blast to play and has the most balanced roster of the series.

  The second part, maybe not so much. But, you know what? If this game was perfect then I could never look forward to the next one. I love Smash, and whenever the next one comes out I hope its even better than this one.

  What I'm trying to say is this: thank you for making another great game Mr. Sakurai. The series wouldn't be the same without you. Keep shooting for the stars you strange, beautiful man.