Opinion: Super Smash Bros Analysis

Opinion

Nintendo's most powerful game. Has it lost it's strength or is it stronger than ever?

As many of you should know by now, the next big entry in the Super Smash series has already been announced, It's actually a 2 hit combo this time around, and their names are Super Smash Bros for Wii U and Super Smash Bros for 3DS but we'll call em "SSBW3" for short. Now, what should we be looking forward to? Well, aside from the fact that graphics and visuals have been improved, we have a very important addition to the roster who's announcement basically made the Earth itself tremble, Megaman or Rockman if you're a Japanese gal or guy. Yes, for any of you who didn't know by now The Blue Bomber joined the fray and his looks, skill set and animations are as classic and smooth as a Mozart's symphony. But we're not here to talk about internet rule 34 sensation Wii Fit trainer or "Condom over Mario's Head" Villager. We're here to talk about what exactly should we be excited about and what I think could be implemented in the new games that might freshen things up a bit. First, let's talk a little bit about what's been going in the franchise, the genre and its console, that way we can lay down a comfy, romantic, rose petal sprinkled bed of context for the incredibly provocative and luscious suggestions I'm gonna give Mr. Sakurai next. (For those of you unaware, Masahiro Sakurai is the SSB series director and the creator of Kirby)

I got this image from the Forbes magazine's website, that's how fucking epic the inclusion of Megaman is

According to the most handsome game developer of all time, SSB Melee for the Gamecube is still his baby boy, he claims it's the most balanced and well rounded entry in the series. Now, SSB Brawl actually had a bigger roster, a level editor, an amazing story mode in comparison to the previous ones and of course, revamped visuals, but many fans of the series still prefer Melee because it seemed more balanced. In Brawl, many characters were just clones of others and there were a couple of fighters who's skill set and moves either didn't work that well or dealt such a small amount of damage they just weren't viable. Let's cross our fingers and wait for the upcoming games to have less clones and a fully viable roster.

so much class and style, this man is 43 years old, 

you ladies wish chumps like Ryan Gosling or Zac Efron managed to have this silky smooth skin at their 40s

The genre itself is pretty unique in its own way, many new games have started to pop up and try to imitate it's style or put their own spin to it. Almost at the end of last year, Sony and PlayStation finally released their supposed SSB killer: Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale, a decent game in it's own right but ultimately a flop. The game was hyped up a lot soon after it's announcement and many Sony fans started chanting their victory anthem before the thing was even released. The trailer for the game on Youtube was constantly getting comments like: "STFU NINTENDRONES, PABR IS GONNA KICK SUPER FAG BROS A$$", "WHO WANTS TO PLAY WITH GANONDORK AND DONKEY DONG, RAIDEN AND COLE FTW" & "FAT PRINCESS IS SO MUCH SEXIER AND PRETTIER THAN PEACH OR ZELDA HAHAHA YEAH!" Well, ok, maybe not that last one, but that's pretty much how that shit went down yo! 

So where is PABR now? It's actually treated as an outcast, a disappointment like the children in Sparta who can't fend off 2 starving saber tooth tigers with a stick. The game was not only a financial failure but also a flawed production when it comes to the genre's demands, it tried to blend hardcore fighting mechanics and combos with an incredibly tedious and awkward way to defeat your opponents, aside from it's aesthetics and some of the most hilarious video game crossover encounters ever, the game landed on its belly after a 30 feet drop which led to it's paralysis, multiple rib fractures and almost absolute termination of a sequel. 

Everything hasn't been horrible though, behind this fake hero, many indie games like Gentlemen! and the upcoming JamSouls for Steam seem promising enough, so the rookies without sponsor might actually show the defeated giant a thing or two and help it get back on it's feet.

this is a screenshot of JamSouls, now awaiting its approval on Steam Greenlight, check it out!

To kind of wrap things up in this already pretty long prologue, let's talk about the consoles these twin titans are going to nest in. SSBW3 is actually holding either an amazing katana that can cut through steel and a crappy wooden shield OR a kitchen knife and a shield who can fend off death itself. What exactly do I mean with all my stupid rambling? Well, SSBW3 as it's name dictates is coming out on 2 platforms, the Wii U and the 3DS. So to start things right, let's talk about the magnificent Nintendo 3DS. This is the katana, the adamantium shield, the 3DS has had such an amazing run and many marvelous things to come, packed with a library unlike any other, features unparalleled in the industry and a price so low it's actually below sea level (this is actually a subliminal message carefully placed here so a proposition I'm gonna make later on doesn't make you go ape shit), this platform is fated to give SSB's debut into portables the show of a lifetime. As for the Nintendo Wii U goes,  things are a little bit shaky, Nintendo is treading on some thin ice here, the game pad has already proven itself a complete hindrance to some decent games. But! all hope is not lost, the Wii U could hit a home run if the ball is pitched the right way, It may not have the strongest arms or the most disgusting spit on the league but it's still powerful in it's own way.

Without further a do, It's time to put on the baby doll, dim down the lights and pop open the bottle of champagne because it's time to reeeally show our appreciation and flexibility to Super Smash:

I`m desperately trying to get your attention

Roster

Bomberman

Hudson and Konami's beloved IP, later tarnished by some crappy decisions that are only gonna make me mad if I talk about them. The White Bomber has had it's fair share of games on Nintendo platforms, so why not? If anything, the inclusion of Megaman sets the tone and lays down the foundation for this demolition project. Bomberman would be a blast! (pun, completely intended) He could even come with a skill that uses Pommy or have it join the roster itself, it's flexible enough, it can take many forms and fight in about a dozen different ways. Megaman has already delved deep into the whole "Grab and use the weapons of your enemies" deal. Bomberman could do the same with the Aqua Bomb, the Wind Bomb, the Light Bomb and so on. He can bring some cool items and propositions into the formula, he is in my opinion one of the most plausible additions to the roster. As far as design goes, I think both the Bomberman from Second Attack or the Generations one would fit in nicely.

Link (From Majora's Mask)

Now, we can all agree Toon Link is pretty cute and all but he's one of the cloniest clones in the series, even the storm troopers get jealous. So what do I propose? Link from Majora's Mask, "Isn't that the young link we saw in Melee? stfu PB!" now, gimme a second to explain pal, we still have 3 days until the moon falls on our heads. I think it would be amazing to see this Link join the roster as a variant to Pokemon Trainer, you read that right, Pokemon Trainer, BAM! He could start as a deku, goron or zora, whichever one you like and have the B-DOWN skill make him change masks, A catapult flower as a recovery for the deku, a fiery uppercut for the goron and a water twister for the zora, many skills can be adapted to work in the battlefield, the goron's roll, the zora's shield, the deku's bubble shot and so on. He could also turn into Fierce Deity Link for his Final Smash, the point is I can assure you he will make for a great fighter and maybe he's addition and success will finally convince Nintendo to remake Majora's Mask for the 3DS!

Paper Mario

What's interesting about this addition is it's remarkable difference to its possible aesthetic clone: Mario. Paper Mario is a beloved character and series of games, he is fun, hardworking and has a heart of gold, but unlike his 3 dimensional counterpart he is far more versatile. He's been joined in his adventures by such a wide array of characters that he's overcome the most difficult, bizarre and complex challenges in all of his series. With the help of his well rounded team of partners and equipped with his hammer, star powers, badges and stickers, he would have no troubling going at it against the best of the best.

Tails/Knuckles

I don't think we'll see them added this time, and I don't even think we'll ever see them both simultaneously because Mr. Sakurai already said that he doesn't want to have third party characters overwhelming the first party ones. But, either of The Blue Blur's best friends would make for a great unique character. Tails could enter the battlefield aboard the Cyclone and Knuckles could easily match Ike or Bowser's brute force. I would love for them to be included.

Ryu

I'm not talking about Ryu from Street Fighter I'm talking about the old classic Ryu Hayabusa from the first Ninja Gaiden or Shadow Warriors games if you're an European reader (who am I kidding, only my mom and my cat read this blog). These gems for the NES are really something I think Nintendo should pursue a bit more. He would be a great addition because of his astonishingly well developed move set and animations like the ones we saw in Ninja Gaiden Sigma and his potential to up the age demographic for the possible buyers. We all love Nintendo and its IPs and that's never gonna change but including some characters that are a bit more rough looking wouldn't hurt the series. Adding Big Daddy and Cole is out of the question, those are just not classic enough and they really do mess with the whole Smash formula, but we witnessed how well our pal Snake did on Brawl, let's not be afraid to pay homage to characters from the same era and with the same amount of awesome.

And now I'm gonna mention others that I believe would be good but not of the 

"AMAZINGOMFGYEAH" kind:

Chrom, Avatar (Fire Emblem Awakening), Geno, Mallow (Super Mario RPG: The legend of the Seven Stars), Chrono (Chrono Trigger), Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia), Prince Fluff (Kirby's Epic Yarn), Little Mac (Punch-Out!), Kachi, Achi, Isa, Airan or Saki (Sin and Punishment).

Mechanics

Before we start, I want to make myself clear: I think the SSB has incredible combat mechanics, level design and stage layout overall. I still wish some things were added and others were changed though, and these are:

Streak Smashes

That's right, just like a predator missile but less stupid, I propose the Streak Smash, well, how does it work? If you manage to beat your opponents 3 times without dying you automatically get your Final Smash! How cool is that? It could be a feature that is configurable on the settings menu along with "stock" and items, you can even set up things like the amount of kills that will net you one or add conditions like: "Only if you kill the same person X amount of times without dying" or "Beating the same person 2 or more times in a row does not count towards the Streak Smash"

Am I the only one who thinks this is a stupid feature in a game that cod fanboys need stop bragging about?

No More Tripping

Brawl introduced tripping as a mechanic, and no, I don't mean tripping balls after you took LSD or had a party with Miley and Molly. Real falling and tripping while in combat, this happened randomly and under almost unpredictable circumstances, it left you vulnerable and just felt like you were taking a cheap hit afterwards. I propose adding an option to turn tripping ON or OFF so competitive players can have their fun and people who love tripping can do it without restraint.

yeah, umm we do not need this in Smash and yeah "We Can't Stop" making fun of you either Miley

Medal or Trinket

Nowadays companies just keep adding more and more buttons to their controllers. Half of them are not even used in some modern games and I am pretty sure they can fit another button for "Trinkets" on the next SSB. What is a "Trinket"? Well I would propose that before every match you select a sort of medal, call it Fire Emblem, Golden Banana, Gameboy Horror, whatever you like, but what these bad boys do is either have a very brief effect or boost up a stat, for example:

Palutena's Crown: Press the "X" button to set up a brief projectile shield that will block but not return any projectile damage for 2 seconds. It charges upon death, kill or every 1 minute. It can only hold 1 charge.

Link's Golden Gauntlets: Very slightly boosts your "A" moves's Knock-back.

Yoshi's Cookie: Use to recover 10% of damage received. It charges upon death, kill or every minute. It can hold up to 2 charges.

These of course are just things I pulled out the top of my head and they could be turned off in the setting menu but I do believe it would give a little bit more of customization when "maining" a character. This feature could be turned on or off and every character should add one, this way, there will be trinkets to unlock and they aren't all available from the get-go.

because I haven't seen one of this mofos since practice mode in SSB64

Underwater Combat

(this is it, the reason that subliminal message was planted inside your head like in Inception, so hang tight)

This is my weakest suggestion because I don't even know if it would work out but I would be thrilled to see stages where big bodies of water could be used as turfs of war too. in the water every attack changes ever so slightly, all recoveries can be set on course to any direction you want and knock back is reduced. I personally think it would be hard to make a new set of moves and animation for everyone underwater but I would be delighted to see people planning their strategies inside a shelter in a stage in which certain characters would excel and could find a way to turn the tide of battle (pun intended, again).

this is what pops up on google images if you type in "underwater combat"

 I am speechless I have no speech, speech is not something I possess

Features

And now, last but not least, changes in the game outside of combat. These features I'm gonna mention are in my humble opinion necessities and I hope you feel the same way.

No More Recolors!

I think we're all a bit tired of clones in SSB, in Brawl for instance we had Fox, Falco AND Wolf. You might be one of those Wolf players now all mad and flustered at me saying: "Wolf is nothing like Fox, I suck with Fox and I rock with Wolf" and I can say to you: "Well, you're not wrong  but you're not right, Wolf is different, his moves are similar but half the "B" moves change and its combos and overall speed change drastically so I'm with you bud." But if you're a Falco player and you say that shit to me, I'll tell you what the Fox says, the Fox doesn't say "Ring-e ding Ring ding a ding", he says he's identical to Falco except for the feathers and the stupid blaster. I know, I know there are some other differences but they are so insignificant when you look at the big picture. This is a game who's developer has already on numerous occasions stressed out how difficulty and mentally exhausting it is to fit in new characters and remove old ones, so your clone should be left out!

evidence, your honor

But! I'm here to offer an alternative, we've already seen Wii Fit Trainer (Male) is in the game but he wasn't announced as a new character, which means that there are skins  that actually change the character model! So what I propose is having this skin ordeal take over almost every character. Want to play as the last generation of Pokemon instead of the first? go ahead, Froakie, Quilladin and Delphox will be there instead of Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard. Would you prefer to use the Link from Skyward Sword instead of the Twilight Princess's one? be my guest. Do you dislike using Ike because spiky hair is no longer cool since we're not in the 90's anymore? Pick Chrom Instead.

more evidence your honor, in the 90s spiked hair was a thing indeed

This would completely freshen up the experience and solve most of the "I want my clone to be included" charade. This, ladies and gentlemen, would make us happy.

No More Story, What Now?

SSBW3 will probably lack a story mode, Nintendo and Sakurai already said in a bi-weekly column on the renown Japanese magazine Famitsu that things would go this way. This isn't bad, necessarily, as cool and exciting as the CG cut scenes on the Subspace Emissary (Brawl's Story Mode) were, It took away a big part of the disc's space and the development team's time. Let's be honest here, We all play the Smash games for its awesome gameplay and the opportunity to see King Dedede hit and fuse Samus and Captain Falcon using the force. So this shouldn't sting that much.

Oh you weren't buying it? well here it is chump

The suggestion here is quite ambiguous, I propose more game modes, VS or Co-op oriented ones. Here are a few examples:

Battle for Ylisse

Something like the "100 man melee" but maybe Fire Emblem themed, a mode in which 4 players try to fend of entire Plegian armies that try to invade Ylisse. The objective here is to find out how long you can manage to hold your ground. This could be turned into a competitive mode by splitting the screen and having items that buff your opponent's enemies, boost up your defenses or damage your opponent's fortress itself so the plegians manage to break his castle's doors and make him lose the match.

Bounty Hunters

A Co-op only experience in which the screen is split and every player has access to a mini-map similar to that of Super Metroid. The layout of the levels are just like the ones in the game and everyone must explore, find a number of keys equal to the number of players and head for the main boss's room where you will finish of Kraig or maybe Metroid Prime. The idea is to do it as fast as possible with a minimal amount of casualties. There could be 3 possible levels each with it's own boss and it is randomly selected each time you begin the hunt.

Pandora's Vengeance:

A VS only scenario in which  2 players battle at a coliseum while Pandora sends in her minions to invade the town. You can't deal damage directly to your opponent but you can kill and evade the minions the goddess of destruction is sending in, they are the only ones that can harm you. Your attacks to the other player will only fill a "stagger bar" that stuns your opponent if you manage to fill it up. Ballistas, spike traps, hot oil traps and the such can be triggered with the previously mentioned "Trinket" button if you're standing next to them and these can only hurt your opponent. (I know this mode seems like a stretch but I've seen worse ideas turn into something awesome)

Game Master

Now this is a new game mode but it is so different I would announce it as a completely new feature. It would be up to the the game devs to create a sort of arena in which many traps and contraptions could be triggered by a player using the game pad, he or she could also send in a boss at some point, maybe Ridley or K. Rool I believe this game mode is something Wii U users would have a blast with.

you guys want to see this funky guy join the fun too, admit it

Now I know this has been a very opinionated article, filled with a bunch of nonsense, it's almost like a  Baz Luhrmann movie, am I right? but I wanna end on a more serious note.

SSBW3 is not coming out anytime soon as far as we all know but there is a problem I'm having with it. I'm not getting excited enough, as soon as I heard of Brawl's announcement I went bananas, maybe it's because I've gotten older but It doesn't feel like that's the reason behind by limp situation. Believe me! I want to be excited, I want to go crazy in bed with this thing, but I just don't have that same eagerness I had when the Smash Dojo was live here on the internet. I've given it much thought and I believe it's lack of innovation that's holding these series back, the game is gonna be amazing no matter what, but I want it to be the game of the decade even when there will probably still be 6 more years until the decade ends upon it's release, So just like a Youtube celebrity would express himself: I approve this message. Wait, no. I want to ask you guys to really share what you thought about my article, my suggestions and add some suggestion and input of your own. Please go nuts in the comments section below.

I'm so good with the whole image puns and references, you've gotta admit that too

**For the native english speakers, I apologize for the grammar errors. I'm still getting the hang of this language, it is in my best interest to write as adequately as possible but please do not let those mistakes take away from the article's meaning and objective.

Remember to follow me on Twitter at "@pegasus_boots" and my new Instagram account "pegasusbootsgb" hope you enjoyed the read!