Important Announcement!

Inori Says:

Axel-sama has cancelled his E3 posts, deciding that Nintendo has done such a fantastic job that he doesn't need to bother with Microsoft and Sony (the truth is, he is actually just really lazy and just came back home in Miami, so he doesn't feel like having to do anything). There are two things he wants you all to not worry about though: Don't worry! He will make another table of me for that Metroid II post eventually. Don't worry! He is currently playing through Super Metroid and plans to carry on his wonderful Metroid essays. Sorry that he decided to forget about E3 for now though, but hey, at least he got some stuff out of the Game of Show for this year... which is obviously Super Smash Bros, like duh. And also, very exciting, there may be a chance that he'll go to E3 next year! :D We'll all just have to wait and see.

The Grand Super Smash Bros 4 Post (Part 2)

So as I described in my last post, I got to see a ton of Super Smash Bros 4 (SM4SH) this week. However, how much of the game did I actually get to play? Well...

When I found out that the closest Best Buy to my location was near Jacksonville, I cannot say I was surprised (but I was still quite annoyed). Meanwhile in Miami, where I would've been had I not decided to stay up in Tallahassee for Summer classes, there was a Best Buy hosting the event that was literally only twenty minutes away from where I live. Nobody cares about Tallahassee, and I'm not criticizing them for that because I don't either! But still, it really sucked that the one Best Buy that exists up here didn't have the game. I don't really get that because that Best Buy is fairly close to the college scene, so I could only imagine it being ridiculously packed even with it being an odd Summer term.

If I really wanted to get hands on with this game, I was going to have to take a two-and-a-half-hour drive over to Orange Park, which would mark this as practically my first road trip that I've ever driven myself. As it turned out, I really wanted to get my own look at this game, so the drive did not stop me from going to that Best Buy. I'm not gonna get into full detail of that drive here, as that is best served for another blog, but I will say that I was pretty much fearing for my life, especially on the way back. I learned that a lot of truck drivers are really not qualified for what they do. I must've counted at least seven truck drivers drifting off the road and then swerving back onto the highway. Add a torrential downpour of rain into the mix, and you'll get a heart rate out of me that'll leave me feeling like I could have a heart attack at any moment.

When I got to the Best Buy, the first thing I wanted to try doing was pre-ordering the game just to get that coin they were giving out. It turned out, though, that they changed their minds about only giving away seventy, and instead they were going to give them to everyone but only when they came over to pick up their game. That was really cool of them, but unfortunately, I am not making another five-hour grand total of a drive just to pick up a game I could get in ten minutes (or download off the eShop). So I just went to stand in line for the game instead. For some reason, I imagined how handling the demo would work would just be some sort of free-for-all, as in everybody just goes up and plays the game. I never really have a practical way of thinking, so when I saw a line I couldn't say I was surprised, even though this is Orange Park. Do people really care about the very Northern end of Florida? Well, I guess Jacksonville may still have quite a population. Nonetheless, the line grew fairly large as time passes. I want to say about over a hundred people were there, which sounds like a really broad and obvious estimation. I saw somebody going around and counting, but I unfortunately completely forgot to ask her what she counted. Anyway, a lot of people did show up, even for it being Orange Park, so I cannot begin to imagine how terrifying it would've been in Miami. Thankfully I have a good sense about these things, so I would've shown up hours beforehand. When I arrived to this Best Buy, though--being two-and-a-half hours away--I was about half an hour early only. The line wasn't so bad then, thankfully, but the wait to play still took about two hours.

Oh, I just want to share this real quick since I did speak to a few people there and I don't want to leave any of them out. Unfortunately, I only got a name for one of them, and that wasn't the first person I spoke to. When I went to pre-order the game (before finding out I'd have to pick it up there to get the coin), I spoke with somebody who had asked if anyone else had seen the Invitational Tournament. When I told him I that I had, we of course went immediately to discussing that controversial Grand Finals match. He felt that Hungrybox should've won, and I suppose maybe so. I said I did agree that I wasn't really too much into ZeRo's playstyle of running down the clock, but what could I have done otherwise if I was him? I did say though that it wasn't very fun to watch, and then he said what really wasn't fun to watch was the Media Rumble. I found this funny because that as exactly what I thought. We didn't really talk too much about the individual players then. The guy I spoke to sort of complained that Zero Suit Samus was too overpowered, but I reasoned that the matchup between her and Kirby was just not slated to end well (not that I don't think Zero Suit Samus is overpowered either, but I'm not complaining!). The guy I spoke to felt that she was just way too fast and too easy to be campy with. We didn't get very far into this discussion, though, because pretty soon he was asked to step up and pre-order, and since I knew I had to pick up the game there, I just decided to wait in line. When he got in line, he wound up someplace else.

As I stood there, I noticed a woman approaching a couple of kids in front of me with a pair of 3DSs. My eyes widened as I thought to myself, "Oh, is that-- It is!" Not only did they have the Wii U version of the game there, but also the 3DS version as well! That was such an amazing surprise since the website only said that they would have the Wii U version. At first, I thought the Smash Run version was the only option they had, and it might've been, I'm not sure. I thought I saw someone else pick the normal fighting option though, as he seemed to be able to pick the stage that he wanted.

So at first I thought about going into detail of what waiting in line was like, since being a writer makes me feel like I have to detail everything. But for this blog, I'm just going to focus on what I experienced with the game. Before I reached the end of the line, I got the beautiful chance to try out the game on the 3DS. I guess the lady saw the sparkles in my eyes, because several people were in front of me waiting to play the game, but, after talking to me a bit, she decided I was going to be next to play the game. The way Best Buy was handling the demos was in this manner: A) For the Wii U, four players came up and played two two-minute matches. B) For the 3DS, I'm not really sure beyond knowing you had five minutes with the game, which was the length of one round of Smash Run. I figured if I decided on Smash Run, I would get the chance to play as three characters that day, so I decided I would check out Samus, Zero Suit Samus, and Greninja, all of whom I will explain later as I did in the last post.

Thinking back, I probably could've picked the normal "Smash" mode and got a little more out of it since I would've been able to see a couple more stages, and maybe another character. There was a problem I had, though, with only having two minutes to try out a character, which I'll get into later. Since I really wanted to see as many new things as possible, I decided to go with Smash Run. Smash Run had a few different submodes, but I just went with the original one, which involved destroying as many enemies before time ran out. This really just played out as a sort of score or time attack of the story mode from Brawl, and really the description of the mode explained it all. As Samus, I ran around pretty much hitting things very hard. There was one enemy that was sort of implanted in the ground, which I had a hard time dealing with so I moved on to others. As I explored the Smash Run stage, I came across a platform that suddenly shot up from the ground, taking me to a door that led to a ton of food, so I got to restore some nice amount of damage.

As I left, an event suddenly came up, and an arrow pointed me to the right, with the distance marked and a timer counting down. This may have just been me in the midst of confusion and trying to keep track of too many things at once, but it seemed like that event arrow would disappear even though I never actually reached the event. I really think it was just me being stupid, though. When I finally did reach the event, it turned out to be some boss. I made it really hard on myself as there were several enemies I just ignored, and in the end I had to bail because my damage percentage was getting too high. As you destroy enemies and open chests and whatnot, you'll find these powerups of different forms and sizes, each improving a certain quality of your character by an amount dependent on the size. I think you also find items and equipment, but I don't think they were useable in the demo.

In the end, I went up against Mario, Sheik, and another Samus, which was pretty dumb. Usually I don't think the CPU in Smash Bros normally picks the same character as what you're playing as, but then again it was just a demo. I feel I did pretty well during that match. Oh yeah, the stage I played on was Gerudo Valley. I managed to meteor spike Sheik into the pit below the bridge, and I'm not sure if I killed her or if she hit the spikes at the bottom, but either way, she wound up dying at some point and I got the point for it. I would've won that match too, but I was unfortunately not paying attention, and so the Twinrova sisters came out and blasted half the stage with ice magic, sending me flying through the blast zones. Because of that, I wound up in a Sudden Death with Mario, and I suck at Sudden Death so I lost to the CPU playing as Mario.

So as far as the 3DS version is concerned, it looks very nice. The graphics are good, the framerate is surprisingly smooth, and the 3DS's smaller screen did not really make it hard to see what was going on. The controls were also pretty good. There are only two things the 3DS really lacks from a GameCube controller, and that's the C-Stick and the Z button. However, because both triggers were used for the shield on the GameCube controller, one of those is still for the shield while the other is used for grabbing on the 3DS version. I didn't find it hard to adjust at all, but now I will have to start getting used to not having the C-Stick for a quick smash attack.

After this, I went back to waiting in line for the Wii U version. As I waited, I managed to get a picture of the character select screen. Keep in mind that this may or may not be the final design when the game is released.

With me was another fan of this game, and we spoke a bit about the Invitational Tournament as well as characters and stuff that we wanted out of this game. He also felt that Hungrybox should've won, but I think he was more along with my sentiment that ZeRo can't really be criticized since he played by what the rules were and went with the smarter choice of avoiding being hit. We moved on to better things to ramble about than that, though, and so he started telling me that he really wanted to see King K. Rool in the game. It's funny because I never really heard anybody suggest that before, but now I go online and I see that request a lot. I said that I wondered if it would be difficult since Rare created King K. Rool, and I mentioned the interview with Grant Kirkhope and how I remembered him saying it felt strange to see their creations used in Smash Bros. However, the fan I spoke to mentioned that Nintendo owns the license to pretty much all the things falling under Donkey Kong, and as such they also own the Kremlings. He also pointed out that the Kremlings are in fact enemies in Smash Run, which I nearly forgot about. So it'll be pretty interesting to see where Sakurai and the team for Smash Bros goes from there. Besides, there is quite a distinct lacking of villains in the roster right now. So far, only King DeDeDe and Bowser have been confirmed. Maybe Ganondorf and Meta Knight will return, but that would still mean we have yet to see any "evil" newcomers.

We spoke a bit about the possibilities for villains to appear in the game, and he mentioned all the hype for Ridley even though it remains uncertain whether he's playable. It's funny because even though the Pyrosphere stage seems complete and playable, that wasn't an option to choose from on the Wii U. I get the sense Sakurai is really enjoying himself there, ha ha. The fan I spoke to said that it may be an indicator that Ridley may be playable, but I am still not so sure about that. I honestly think King K. Rool has a better chance of appearing in the game than Ridley, and I love the Metroid series and would be totally cool with seeing Ridley as a character.

Before I talk about my experience with the Wii U game, just real quick, I have to post a picture of one of the best things I saw out of this.

At the end of the line was a survey asking for feedback on the event. So for Saturday's event, somebody wrote, "Less Sonic." Couldn't have said it better myself!

When we got up to the game, we were unfortunately handed the pro controllers. This was pretty disappointing and made me nervous about how I would play, but at the same time, I did not have high expectations for seeing the GameCube controllers at Best Buy. I tried to see the controls on the loading screen, but the loading screen went by way too fast. Luckily, if you've played Brawl on a pro controller, you will probably understand the controls. Besides, it is not too different from a GameCube controller. The only thing is now the stick for the C-Stick is above the X-Y-A-B buttons, and there is an extra Z-button. Unfortunately, I was too used to A) switching the A and B buttons around since A is on the bottom on an Xbox controller (I play Brawl on my computer. I paid for and own the Wii game, so chill), and B) the C-Stick being below the buttons. So I had a hard time adjusting to the new controller, and as such, I probably should not have picked Zero Suit Samus first. I kept jumping when I meant to attack, special attacking when I meant to normal attack, and vice-versa for both. I would forget where the C-Stick was at times. As a result of all this, I often fell off the stage or missed a chance to attack somebody. When I realized that I should've picked Greninja first to get a feel for the controls, I really wanted to pick Zero Suit Samus again. However, I fought my urge to adore using my main fighter again, and so I got to check out what Greninja was like instead.

It also did not help that I was kind of in a state of complete shock, awe, and nervousness, ha ha. I think this may be the first time I've ever experienced anything like this, but then again, it must be so for most other people as well. I was so excited that I actually didn't even see Zero Suit Samus right next to Samus on the character screen. I also did not notice which player I was, which sounds weird, but this was also sort of mixed in with how we did not stand in the order of which the controllers were connected. I know that has nothing to do with who is what player, but listen, in my mind, I always imagined players one through four standing from left to right in order, okay?

The stages we fought on were the Animal Crossing stage and the boxing stage. The Animal Crossing stage here seems pretty much a lot like the one from Brawl, only with more visual things occurring that don't affect the fight. On the boxing stage, I really tried to take advantage of the light stage hazard, where if you hit them enough times, they will fall and hurt anybody standing under. Or that's how it should supposedly work. When I managed to knock down the lights (after what must've been like twenty hits), they fell right through somebody with well over a hundred percent in damage. So in the end, I don't think the lights have a huge amount of payoff. I'm not sure if there is any way to keep track of how close they are to falling, but if there is, I would just wait until I notice that instead of spending a good half-minute trying to take the lights down.

As far as graphics and such are concerned, come on, it's a Wii U. May not be as good as a PS4 or XBone, but Nintendo has never been about centralizing a game on its graphics. The game is still gorgeous and everything that moves just looks so smooth. Again, watching Zero Suit Samus's animations really brings that out, and I love the new intricacies in her animations for her attacks, like when she twists around for her new forward-A smash attack.

After that second match, that was the end of my time there. I grabbed a Super Smash Bros pin and completely left in my stupor, forgetting entirely to watch a few more matches and speak with the person who counted how many people were in line. It was also getting a little late, and I had a long drive back home. So in all, I spent about five hours driving, two and a half standing in line, and maybe about ten minutes actually playing the game because again, we only played two two-minute matches. Unfortunately, I was well in over my head in assuming I would be able to get a true feel for the changes to Zero Suit Samus's character in two minutes against three other people, with controls I had to take a moment to understand. I was a little disappointed at first during my drive back, but as I think more and more about this, I am actually just more amazed by all of it, and I really can't complain. It was so cool getting to be one of the first people ever to play this game, months before it was even ready to be played. Throughout the whole day at Best Buy, the game kept crashing on the Wii U. Sakurai even said during the Invitational Tournament that he was surprised the game hadn't crashed once. So in all I think I was very lucky and privileged to have that chance to see the game. And on top of that, I got to have the surprise of seeing the 3DS version there, which I honestly did not expect.

But as I said, two minutes was not enough for me to get a feel for a character. This means I won't have much to say about Zero Suit Samus outside of what I observed from E3 and a little of what I noticed as I played as her. The same would've gone for Greninja, but someone else, going by Martakia on Twitter, played as him on the 3DS version and gave me quite a lot of detail. As for Samus, I got a better feel for her than anybody else, so I have quite a few things to say. I think I have more information about Samus and Greninja than Zero Suit Samus actually because what I got was from time spent with the 3DS version, and since Martakia and I had five minutes to spend with a character as opposed to two, that's what allowed me to get more info on them. It is unfortunate that I couldn't have had that time with Zero Suit Samus on the Wii U, but it's understandable because there were quite a lot of people there for a Best Buy located in Northern Florida. I would also like to thank the event coordinators at Best Buy for being just so cool about it and not being as aggressive on photography as other stores seemed to have been. I hardly even believed other stores prohibited that when I saw that on Reddit a couple of days later.

Ah, but I am digressing from the heart of what matters here, right? So let's get to it: my experience with three characters from Smash 4!

Zero Suit Samus: Faster, Better, Stronger!

So while I didn't get to play as Zero Suit all that much, I still know very well that if Sakurai has done anything with her, it definitely hasn't been nerfing her awesomeness from Brawl. In Brawl, she is like what, the second-fastest character? One of the things I was worried about was how her speed would compare, and as it turns out, it looks like Sakurai has made her even faster. She seems to be able to go across the stage in like half the time it takes for other characters. And because they really wanted to work on Zero Suit Samus's "bad" recovery in Brawl,* her jumps are ridiculously high. Just watching her move in and of itself is simply amazing. Also like in Brawl, she seems to be fairly light. Not as frail as a glass cannon, obviously, but probably still just as hard to DI and SDI out of attacks with. Now to be honest, I don't think I'm that good at DI, and I am probably not the right guy to tell you about DI in Smash 4, so just keep that in mind.

Overall, Zero Suit Samus's attacks feel more or less the same, with the notable exception of a couple. There are still some minute changes in all of her attacks, though. I don't believe I can really cover every single one, and the same is said for Greninja and Samus. But I will do the best I can to describe these moves.

• Neutral A: Sammie's classic one-two-three jab is back, and seems about just as fast. I do not know if you can still hold down the A button to have her jab forever until someone walks into it. I hope that's still in merely because that was cool, but I'm not wholly concerned with that. It appears her jab still hits as quickly as it did in Brawl. I think there's something about its hitbox being in the very first frame in Brawl? Forgive me for my use of Smash terminology is, to be frank, terrible. Still, point is her neutral A is still just as great as it was in Brawl. Somebody dodge-rolled my Paralyzer Shot and I managed to instantly punish him the moment he got out of the dodge with this triple A combo.
• Forward-Tilt A: I haven't seen as much of this move. I think the kick either hits harder or does a little bit more knockback (or both). That seems to be the general theme for most of Zero Suit Samus's moves.
• Down-A: Another move I did not see much of a difference in due to how little I've seen it.
• Up-A: Looks to be a little bit longer in execution, but I may be wrong.
• Side Smash: Her horrible whip attack has now been replaced with a neat kick with the jet boots that actually has two hitboxes, functioning very much like the Plasma Whip special attack. The knockback seems somewhere from moderate to moderately high; whatever the case, it is a hell of a lot better than that terrible side whip from Brawl. To be fair, I actually did like the side whip, but I used it very sparingly, mostly as a follow up to a double Down Smash combo. This move seems to take a little less time to hit with, so it leaves less room for punishment against Samus. Of course, anyone behind her will get the advantage, but the same could be said for all side attacks.
• Up Smash: That plasma whip is back again, and still racks up some fair amount of damage. I am not sure if it still has the momentum effect that was present in Brawl, where you could dash and then suddenly do the Up Smash while sliding. What I have seen was a way better knockback; I think this move may have even killed somebody at ninety to a hundred percent! In Brawl, you'd have to be pretty well over a hundred and fifty to get a kill, if you were lucky.
• Down Smash: Samus's very iconic, very punishing stun is back. Double Down-A combos are still doable. The stun seems to last the same amount of time. This was never a move that needed to be change, and it seems the developers knew that very well.
• Neutral Aerial: I have not seen this move much in action.
• Forward Aerial: The one-two kicks seem to do either a bit more knockback or a bit more damage. Whatever the case, chaining this attack is still possible.
• Back Aerial: Samus's devastating back-kick is back and possibly even stronger than it was in the last game. I thought I saw her kill somebody at ninety percent with it. Whatever the case, it is still just about as considerably powerful as it was in Brawl.
• Up Aerial: Now this kick actually seems to have been a bit nerfed. Unfortunately, I haven't really seen many KOs with this move at lower percentages under a hundred (this was totally possible in Brawl), but it is important to consider that the range of the blast zones really do play a part in this. If there is one thing that I have seen from this, it's that the move can still combo into itself pretty nicely.
• Neutral B - Paralyzer Shot: Pretty much about the same as in Brawl. Very useful for spacing, and the stuns seem to last the same length.
• Side B - Plasma Whip: Also a little bit similar. It seems the tip's knockback has been a bit lessened, but there are still two hitboxes, and being hit by both of them can still be bad. Hell, being hit by the tip at higher percentages can still be devastating. Also, this move still naturally provides good spacing. I think it may be a tad bit slower to execute, though.
• Down B- Flip Jump/Kick: Yes! This was probably my favorite move! As we see, it is still in the game, and has a very nice visual of afterimages added to it. More importantly, the kick still meteor spikes, but both the kick and the jump have an awesome property implemented into them. As in Brawl, you can footstool or "flipstool" off somebody's head with the flip jump, but now if they are on the ground, you can even dig them into the ground as would happen with a Pitfall. The kick also seems to make you bounce off the enemy, which is really awesome because now it will help a lot with recovery from killing people offstage with it.
• Up B: Ah, the new rocket jump and kick. This replaces Samus's Plasma Wire ability, which was actually really useful and thus I am kind of sad. However, this kick still has really awesome merit. I saw a Nintendo rep do a double down smash and follow up with this move, which hit the target multiple times and followed up with a kick that seems to have strong knockback. I'm not sure if this move makes Samus suffer from "recovery paralysis," and I hope not, because I honestly think this move will be a bit harder to recover with.

As for Sammie's grab and tether recovery: Her grab still seems just as terrible as it was in Brawl. Thankfully, I think the postlag is not as bad, but nonetheless she is still very punishable and it may just be better to avoid grabbing with her altogether. Now her tether recovery is what really makes me happy. Why? Because it still has just about the same amount of incredibly ridiculous range! This was a staple in killing people offstage with Zero Suit Samus, as her recovery in Brawl hinged upon the crazy length of her tether grab.

Then of course we have her Final Smash, which is just absolutely ridiculous. She calls in her gunship, takes flight, and shoots down her enemies. It is really Snake's Final Smash, only with out the lag between firing and hitting the target because Snake lobs grenades from a grenade launcher. I think Samus's Final Smash is a bit more accurate too. It is also long as Hell, so long that it is enough to very easily turn the tide of a fight and land as many as possibly five KOs from it. This is the very reason why Smash Balls are turned off in most fights that I play.

This mostly all just stuff I observed from watching, though. I am not wholly sure how each of these moves really play out. Sadly, two minutes was just not enough for me to really understand these moves. My main concerns are centered on her Up B. Will she still be able to do a tether recovery if her Up B misses? Will she still be able to choose the Plasma Wire from the custom moves? The Plasma Wire played a spectacular role in some devastating combos out of Brawl. Still, I can see good potential for Samus's new Up B, and if Plasma Wire is gone for good, I am sure I can adapt to her new Up B and find ways to really destroy with it.

Samus: Notably Less Clunky and Pathetic

In Brawl, Samus in her Power Suit was, to be honest, completely useless for me. The only way she seemed to work was by camping and nailing down opponents with projectiles. The latter makes sense, because she is projectile-based, but in Brawl she just seemed to hinge upon those moves. Her attacks did very little knockback with the grand exception of just one. She did not even seem to do all that much damage with them. Her movement was slow, and in the air she was very floaty and an easy target for characters with a good air game.

When I played as Samus on the 3DS, I don't really know if I noticed a huge difference. The changes are there, but is she really "Best Character" material as Sakurai seemed to have stated? I still think Zero Suit Samus is better, but that may just be because I like faster characters (except Sonic, screw him). But the improvements are there, though. When she jumps, she seems to go back to the ground quite faster. It's not like Pikachu or Zero Suit who can go back to the ground quickly, but it is also not like Peach whose dress seems to give her ridiculous aerodynamics. She also seems to run and move just a little bit faster. I would say her speed and jumping is average, which is a heck of a lot better than what we got in Brawl. Now let's see her attacks:

• I just realized, I might actually have more to say about Zero Suit Samus than anybody else since I just watched so much of her and paid so much attention to her moves.
• Neutral A: Samus's one-two seems a bit quicker. Can't really say much about the damage/knockback department.
• Forward-Tilt: lol i actually dont even remember samus's forward tilt woops.
• Down Tilt: Samus's considerably ridiculous explosion into the ground in Brawl is actually either just as strong or a little weaker. Nonetheless I think it is still a good KO move.
• Up Tilt: I haven't tried or seen Samus's up tilt. Which is weird because that was also one of her decent moves from Brawl. Sorry!
• Side Smash: Here we go. You see, when I tested out Samus, I was focused on her Smash attacks, pretty much because her Smash attacks were mostly jokes in Brawl. Her Side Smash, barely redeeming in Brawl, is a bit stronger now. I haven't KO'd anyone with it but I have knocked the other Samus back quite a bit at around seventy percent.
• Up Smash: This Smash was so much of a joke in Brawl that I forgot to try it out in this game.
• Down Smash: Seems considerably stronger. I managed to launch someone from the ground at around ninety percent and follow up with a Screw Attack that killed the opponent. That was easily the coolest thing I've ever done with Samus.
• Neutral Aerial: I did not test this out.
• Forward Aerial: Feels more or less the same really. Might have better knockback, again I'm not sure.
• Back Aerial: Fairly strong, but not as strong as Zero Suit's back kick, I think.
• Up Aerial: I have not seen this or tested it out.
• Neutral B - Charge Shot: The Charge Shot is quite a bit quicker than before. You can still dodge and save it. It is still quite a killer at high percentages. Sakurai said something about "consequences" for charging too often, but I don't think I noticed anything. Maybe I didn't do it enough.
• Side B - Missiles: More or less the same I think. The Super Missile does more damage the father it travels, I think, but this may have worked the same in Brawl as well.
• Down B - Morph Ball Bombs: I never understood the point of this attack in Smash Bros, so I never used it. I thought I actually saw someone launch someone else in the air with this; if that is true, looks like they are finally useful.
• Up B - Screw Attack: Samus's Screw Attack has been given the incredible useful hitbox at the end that knocks back enemies caught in her attack. This was the pivotal mechanic that made that Down Smash-into-Up B combo one of the best kills I've ever landed as Samus.

Samus's grab seems to be the same, as her tether recovery. I haven't tried either because playing as Zero Suit Samus has pretty much taught me not to grab, and the one stage I played as Samus on was Gerudo Valley, offering little opportunities for tether recoveries. Her Final Smash is the same, only now the end lag is considerably less now that she doesn't change forms. This is really not that great of a report on Samus's character, and for that I do apologize. I will say, though, that I came very close to actually winning a match with her Power Suit form, which rarely happened at all in Brawl (usually if I did it was on one of those matches where everyone is laughing so much they end up crying), so that's very promising.

Greninja: Everyone's Favorite Gen VI Starter Seems Ridiculous

Before I begin, I'd really like to thank Martakia for the info on Greninja, because otherwise, my report on Greninja would be tremendously worse than Samus's since I don't even have a frame of reference for comparison. Because I don't know his moveset by heart as I do with Samus and Zero Suit Samus, I am not going to give a list.

Greninja is a fairly fast and nimble character. Definitely nowhere near Zero Suit Samus, but maybe somewhere along the lines of Sheik. Greninja's jumping seems a bit floaty, although I'm not entirely sure if that's true. As far as damage and knockback is concerned, I don't think he's as lightweight as Zero Suit Samus, but he's definitely no heavy guy. Maybe a little bit moderately below average.

I know very, very little of his aerial attacks with the exception of one, which I'll get to in a second. I don't actually know his Neutral A move, but his forward-tilt is ridiculous. When I played as Greninja in the boxing ring stage, I managed to bounce somebody back and forth off the ring's walls quite a few times with that one move. The guy I was hitting and I started laughing, but then his friend came and smacked me around a bit. I used Greninja's up-tilt a little bit, and I think I was able to kind of juggle with it. On the matter of the side and up tilts, Martakia said that the way these tilts function mechanically are a lot similar to Fox's, making it very easy to trap an opponent.

Unfortunately, I don't know too much about Greninja's Smash attacks. They seem to have small hitboxes, or maybe I was just being dumb. I was really trying to break those water swords out, I think mostly just for the novelty of seeing them though ha ha. So yeah, not much on Greninja's Smash attacks.

I'm going to be up front and admit right now I really don't have much to go by on personal experience for Greninja. I don't remember very well what he did in the stuff that I would watch, and again, that two-minute round was not enough time for me to really digest what Greninja was like, especially since he's a new character. I can briefly go over his special moves, which I guess I'll do right now

• Neutral B - Water Shuriken: Greninja can charge up a water shuriken and throw it at the enemy, much like Lucario/Mewtwo's Aura Sphere. However, you have to hold B to charge the attack. According to Martakia, this move also easily racks up damage percentage and can trap opponents, making a good set up for a combo. When I played as Greninja, I really saw this play out. The water shuriken hits multiple times, hence the consistent racking of damage especially if you trap somebody. Then I ran up and did a dash attack, which I followed up with an aerial of some sort. It was pretty nice. The only downside to this move is that it takes a while to charge.
• Side B - Shadow Sneak: I never used this move. I only wanted to mention that, according to Nate, when you use it you'll see Greninja's shadow move across the floor. I didn't really notice this but if that's true that is really cool. The move itself seems to be a lot like Meta Knight's move, where he teleports to something and strikes.
• Up B: This is literally Pikachu's recovery, only with a water theme to it. Pikachu's recovery is really good, so this one is also pretty good.
• Down B - Substitute: I never used this move, but it seems tricky to pull off. The counter window is very small and very early. I'm not wholly sure what happens if it is pulled off; I know Greninja pulls out a substitute from Pokémon, but I don't remember if he counterattacks. I assume he does, though, as that has been what every counter move in Smash ever was.

To wrap up Greninja, I am going to summarize the rest of what Martakia had told me. So Greninja's down-air is pretty much a sort of lunge downward, like Zero Suit Samus. However, unlike Zero Suit Samus, you do not move diagonally. This makes it harder to use this move as a recovery (although, from my experience, I did manage to hit someone twice in a row with this). Still, his Up-B that he stole from Pikachu makes up for the loss in recovery as the Up-B move is a pretty good recovery. Overall, Greninja is pretty much a "better version of Mewtwo" in this game, with "more hitstun" and stuff. Thanks again to Martakia for that info, because otherwise this segment would've solely been about Samus and Zero Suit Samus and my love for Metroid.

So that was my time at Best Buy, really. It was very fun getting to speak to some of the members of the Smash community while waiting for this new game, and again, I am amazed I even got to play the game for ten minutes. I am simply amazed by all that I've seen of this game at all during E3; never before had I spent as much time with a game showing on E3 as I had with this one, which I believe was shown off for a grand total of six hours, hence why these posts are so long. This is also pretty much why Super Smash Bros 4 is most likely going to be my Game of Show out of E3 this year. I was originally pretty upset that the release date was pushed back to October 3rd, but after watching all this stuff for it, I was literally so hyped up for the game that my hype actually overtook my disappointment rather than adding to it and making me even more impatient for the game. When you can make me that excited for a game as to refresh my patience for it, you have done pretty much everything and more than what you needed to do to market the game for me. So congratulations, Nintendo and Mr. Sakurai, for pretty much winning this event before I had even finished Nintendo's streams to begin with.

On blog matters, the next E3 post will be entirely devoted to Nintendo, since they went all out and spent three whole days talking about and showing their upcoming games just nonstop. I am just really impressed by that, I have never seen anyone do that at E3 before. Unfortunately, the press conferences and Nintendo are going to have to wait, because one of my teacher's poorly mismanaged her lesson plan for the Summer online course I'm taking, and now I have to sit through three hours of lectures during finals week, which is this week. And to give you a clearer idea of my situation: A) She did not release the lectures until today, B) I have a study guide to work on tomorrow, and C) I have my final on Tuesday. Good job, FSU Nutrition professor, good job.

I also may be getting a Twitter for this blog, as Martakia heavily recommended that I'd do so, and I've honestly been thinking about getting one for some time. The thing is that I don't think I would be as active on it as I should be, and if you actually follow this blog (which holy shit thank you so much), you'd know I have a hard time keeping up with this one even. However, we'll see as time plays out, because I do know there are certain things I think about that don't seem to deserve a full fledged post but at the same time I feel I need to share them.

So yeah. Thanks for reading my stuff on SM4SH. I hope I can get back to this blog and get on to writing about Nintendo's phenomenal show as soon as I can.

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* Zero Suit Samus's recovery in Brawl was actually not "bad" at all, it was just tricky to pull off in bad situations. If you are way off the stage and out of jumps, you'll need to use her tether recoveries as quickly as possible. The main thing that could screw you up then is actually somebody grabbing the ledge as you slide up from the tether grab, or being hit again. But really, this should rarely happen to begin with, as you should only really be going offstage with Zero Suit Samus when you are confident and certain you can get the kill. It is also needless to say the less people you are fighting against the safer it is to go offstage.

Nintendo @ E3: The Grand Super Smash Bros 4 Post (Part 1)

This is why I love E3

Hello everybody and welcome to my first part of my potential series of E3 posts! Now, I know earlier I said I was trying to avoid a "series" and I still am. However, Nintendo this week has made that just incredibly difficult for me. Like, oh my God. When I saw their Digital Event, I'm going to be honest, I was a little disappointed. This may be mostly because I don't have a Wii U, but still. Now, I realize that presentation only scratched the surface. With their Treehouse department live at E3 ALL DAY for THREE DAYS STRAIGHT, I saw what they were doing. Oh man, that was simply amazing. I haven't even finished watching all of that stuff yet. So because of the tremendous amount of depth and content they've shown off, I really do not think I can sum up E3 in a single post. I'm going to have to make an entirely separate post just for Nintendo. Let me tell you, if I have to make an entire single post just for one company at E3, that's pretty much indicative that they won, and I haven't even looked at Sony and Microsoft yet (like Microsoft even has a chance).

However, let's take a breath for a moment and hold up. As you may be aware--given that, of all of what's probably just five posts that I've written since the Metroid essay, three quarters of those are Super Smash Bros 4 posts (here-onwards referred to as SM4SH)--I have been tremendously hyping for this game. It's strange because Metroid is my favorite franchise out of Nintendo, but no other game from them seems to generate as much excitement for its release than Super Smash Bros. We have the classic characters that have appeared on Nintendo consoles, the iconic choices of stages that perfectly reflect the respective game's lovely style, and of course, the intensity of just duking it out against other people in a game that's more about pushing people off the screen than draining a health bar. It's fast-paced, and every character, no matter how crappy they may be competitively, has something to love about playing as them. This is a series that has acquired such a tremendous fan base, too, and this week I pretty much got quite a look at how huge it really is.

This is why I'm splitting up these posts even further and making an entire single post devoted to SM4SH, because regardless of any of the following:

• Lack of physics exploits from Melee
• Zero Suit Samus being OP
• Being too similar to Brawl (my only reaction to that is: ??????????????? I can understand preferring Melee to Brawl, but still)
• The first tournament ever held for the game was won in a widely disagreeable fashion
• No Shadow the Hedgehog/Powerpuff Girls/Kingdom Hearts characters/Insert Famous Character from Famous Franchise Here as playable characters. Come on, you got Mega Man and Pac-Man (ew), please give Sakurai a break at some point

SM4SH is going to be amazing. Have you seen all the gameplay they've put out for it? I sure as Hell haven't (although I pretty much saw most of it) and I'm already in love. Well, yeah, I've been in love, but you know what I mean. You can say that Melee or Brawl or even 64 is better, I don't care. You cannot deny though that it will be incredibly fun to play and difficult to get tired of.

Alright, so we've have a ton of ground to cover, and I don't believe I'll even cover everything, so let's get to it. First, we begin at pretty much the very beginning of the Digital Event. After a pretty hilarious--is it even CG?--"fight" between Satoru Iwata and Reggie Fils-Aime, the Mii is revealed as a newcomer! I know in my little rant about the "prophet" of SM4SH* that I sounded like I detested the suggestion, but seeing the Mii in SM4SH just felt right to me. I think I partially fear ridiculous characters appearing in SM4SH and feeling out of place, but since the Mii is an icon of Nintendo, it just made sense. Sakurai even says that he thought about it initially for Brawl, but it didn't seem right to him at the time. That makes sense since Miis weren't as active in games as they are today.

Now I can fight against Reggie!

I'm not going to get into grand detail with their moves, mostly because I only saw them for merely seconds on a video. I will inform that they will have quite a range of different movesets, because every character now has 12 different moves to choose from. Also, though, the Mii is unique in that there are three different styles for them (unarmed brawler, sword fighter, and gunner), so because they have three different styles, they really have thirty-six different moves. You can select any Mii that you have on your hardware and make him one, and so Sakurai has used this to constantly joke about all the ridiculous suggestions he keeps getting.

I can finally be a Smash Bros character!

After talking about the Miis for a bit, Sakurai moves on to the matter of game modes on the 3DS. He doesn't actually discuss them, but he does pull up a sort of montage of the different things we'll see in the game... and boy, are there a lot of them. I watch that clip like three times over and I'm still unsure of everything I saw. There seems to be a Classic Mode. There will be coins like from Brawl, and it seems you can spectate matches and bet on players. There seems to be a sort of sound test where you can playback the characters' voice acting. There is also a screenshot photo album, and we see some of what the trophy viewers are like. There were a few other game modes shown very briefly, and since I don't have much context for them, I really can't say much about them. Check out the Digital Event if you want to see for yourself. What I do know is that they said during the Treehouse streams that the coins you get will be used or involved with these other game modes/minigames as well.

Sakurai then gives the usual, "We need time to debug the game" lines, and with that, my gut wrenches. Sure enough, the release date for SM4SH on the 3DS is shown, and it is not in the Summer, but on October 3rd. This may be partially why I wasn't all that into the Digital Event, since I was sour the whole time about the pushback, so that takes away even more unnecessary blame on the Digital Event. This was really the only sour, bitter point of all of Nintendo's time at E3. I really wished the game was coming out over the Summer, because during school I have a hard time finding the time for anything. I have a hard time finding the time to put on my shoes in the morning, honestly. Also, my friends back home have this silly habit of going to McDonald's and playing their 3DS there until three in the morning. That's just the place to be if you're going to play your 3DS with friends at late hours of the night! When we found out that they were making a Super Smash Bros game for the 3DS, we jumped for joy at the thought of finally being able to play Smash Bros at McDonald's until three in the morning! We'll still get to do that, but I won't be able to do so with them until as early as Thanksgiving Break, and that just makes me sad. At least I'll have friends at school to play the game with though, and it's not like I can't connect online with my friends back home. They can invite me to one of their McDonald's tournaments while I'm at my apartment!

Sorry, moving on from my personal breakthroughs, SM4SH did not end on that sour note during the Digital Event. At the very end, Reggie says something along the lines of, "Why not end on another little teaser?" At first, my hopes shot straight up for a new Metroid game, but more on my desperate and hopeless pining for a new Metroid game in my Nintendo post. Instead, we got another character reveal for SM4SH! And who was it this time?

( ´͈ ॢꇴ `͈ॢ)･*♡ = my face every time

PALUTENAAAAAA!!!! THE LEAK WAS REAL, BITCHES!!! CALLED IT!!! CALLED IT!!!!!!

Shut up about that stupid "prophet," I don't even want to hear about him right now.

Side thought: what if the "prophet" was Sakurai this whole time?

So her trailer was pretty cool, shot mostly in the form of an anime. I wondered of a Smash Bros anime but people on Reddit are saying it was referencing a Kid Icarus Uprising anime of sort. I just find it really cool how Sakurai and the development team get really into these reveal trailers. I'm also really glad I don't have to send those Palutena leaks over to my friends for analyzing anymore, and now finally all the people who think they know everything about edited photos that claimed they were fake when really they just didn't want Palutena in the game can shut up. Wow that was quite a nasty sentence.

The trailer showed all twelve of Palutena's special moves, plus her Final Smash, so this Digital Event really brought out the hype for that option. Also, at the end of her trailer, Dark Pit came swooping in, which was really awkward. Is he a character reveal? Is he an assist trophy? What was up with that? I personally doubt he'll be playable because 1) what an awkward reveal, and 2) even though I've never played a Kid Icarus game, Dark Pit just seems too easy to be another Pit. It's pretty much why I don't want Dark Samus playable because I think she'll just be too similar to Samus. I think that Dark Pit will probably be an alternate costume. A lot of other people on the Smash Bros. SubReddit seem to think the same as well. It's not really certain whether every character will have a truly customizable appearance, or like alternate costumes or whatever, but that would be really nice. Besides, some characters already have that, why not all? Then again, I understand it could be difficult to do that... but is a green-haired Zero Suit Samus too much to ask?

^___^ So happy I was right.

So after the Digital Event... nothing else really. The Nintendo Treehouse went on talking about many games from the Digital Event that I initially didn't care too much for at first, but because of how in-depth they went into these games, I became really interested in them. And I don't even have a Wii U. Keep that in mind for my next post on how Nintendo seems to have won E3 for me. Getting back to SM4SH, though, and before I get into the Invitational Tournament, there is one thing I nearly forgot about, and that is Amiibo.

I don't want to get too much into this, but basically, Nintendo is releasing a line of toys or figurines that can interact with both 3DS and Wii U games. It seems they chose Smash Bros as the perfect game to introduce these toys with, and basically, I think there are going to be figurines for every fighter in the game. On the Wii U, there'll be a sensor on the gamepad controller that'll download the toy's information and make them a CPU you can fight and train in the game. Eventually, that CPU will be even stronger than a Level 9 CPU. I don't know how it will entirely work, like if it learns like the AI in Brawl does, but I do know that the Amiibo toy CPUs will be able to level up and equip gear, which is actually something players can do too (the equipping gear part, I mean).**

That's pretty much all I have to say about it really. I'm sure there's more information on it, but that's the gist of it. You can also use that same CPU on other people's games and consoles. It seems like it might be the answer to the cons of training with a Level 9 CPU in Brawl as opposed to fighting real people, even though I'm still certain fighting real people will always be best.

Alright, so Invitational Tournament. I took this as a good opportunity to see how each character plays. As it turns out, I left still without any real idea at all! This tournament was very fresh, intense, and energetic, and honestly, this is the first actual Smash Bros tournament I've ever seen. It was a very impressive event; Sakurai showed up, Reggie showed up, some guy from the Nintendo Treehouse showed up, some host from I think Spike or G4TV was there. Most importantly, though, was the presence of what seemed to be iconic announcers and players. I can't really go into much detail about this tournament anymore as it was a couple of days ago for me, plus like an idiot I didn't take any notes throughout pretty much all of Nintendo's E3 stuff. So, I'll just share my highlights of sort. I guess this also means I'm including videos here. There isn't much that particular stands out in my memory. Bear in mind that my primary concern with this game is how Zero Suit Samus plays, so I paid much of my observation to ZeRo and how he was playing (which unfortunately wasn't too fun or informative since he mostly played it safe. Not as boring and silly as that Media Rumble match though with the different people from different magazines. That was terrible).

Also, interestingly enough, when Sakurai came on stage he said that Samus was reported to be the best character so far. That's right, not Zero Suit Samus, normal Samus, who was absolutely crap in Brawl. That should be interesting.

So first highlight of the day: Zero Suit Samus's Final Smash being revealed! Here's the match that she used it in. This was also the match where ZeRo was either most confidant or most willing to go in to attack, so it was also the most fun to watch. Also, this is a pretty nice look at the Skyloft stage and Rosalina (and I guess Fox and Bowser too).



This was my first true look at Zero Suit in the game, since everything else were just screenshots. Plus her Final Smash was never shown until now (or maybe from livestreams at E3, but I don't care). You cannot imagine the joy that overwhelmed me. You cannot begin to imagine the hype. I was crying, it's true. Zero Suit Samus was amazing, and I was so happy to see that she seems to move just as fast and jump just as fantastically well, if not better than before. She also seems to hit pretty hard, a little bit harder than in Brawl maybe, and of course her Final Smash being infinitely better than it was in Brawl excites the living Hell out of me. Of course, I don't use the Final Smash all that much to begin with, but still.

Throughout the tournament, after every match, they had the fans vote for their favorite character by holding up a notebook with a page open to that character... er, this will take some explaining. The notebook is basically a series of pages, each page an image of a character from the new game. So fans would hold up the character they were voting for, and the people running the event would somehow tally the votes up. I have no idea how they'd do this because there were several times when the votes for one character seemed indistinguishable from the votes for another. Whatever the case, some people were constantly voting for Pikachu even well after he was out of the tournament, and the G4TV host was getting annoyed with that. That was pretty funny.

Next highlight is the Media Rumble. HA HA HA I'm kidding, that was completely awkward and boring. They had another odd match, the Celebrity Match, with people from things that don't seem too popular honestly. Like how many people really watch Teen Wolf? However, they did have Zelda Williams, which I thought was a little bit funny and kind of awkward. Still, she was really, seriously owning it as Greninja (can you imagine how awkward that would've been if she picked Zelda?). I mean god damn, I had no idea Robin Williams's daughter would be so good at Smash Bros. She could probably kick my ass, and I like to think I'm good at playing as Zero Suit Samus (I'm pretty sure I am, I beat several people at my school). Sadly, some random guy playing as Bowser won, but she'll always be the winner of that match in my eyes. I think she even landed a Final Smash, she was just tearing everyone apart.

Then we have the Grand Finals match, which seems like one of the most controversial things to ever happen in the Smash Bros community's history. At least that's the way the Smash Bros SubReddit seems to put it. Just watch the Grand Finals, and if you're big on competitive play (well, you probably already saw this) you can probably see why people were upset and booing. Also, this video I found just so happened to hold my other favorite moment: Reggie comes up and tells somebody he's gonna kick his ass!



Hence where the picture up top comes from! I think it pretty much sums up the crowd's reaction to this fight. Now I personally didn't feel wholly satisfied watching ZeRo play Zero Suit there. I was expecting something insane, and that wasn't what I got. Instead, he used Zero Suit's Plasma Whip a lot. I can see why he used it so much, but that really is not the way you play as Zero Suit Samus, at least in Brawl. ZeRo used that whip for spacing, to keep Hungrybox away, and it worked for the most part. I'm not really going to criticize ZeRo for doing that because that is the smart way to approach Zero Suit Samus when you don't play as her all that much (I assume he doesn't, but also I give the benefit of the doubt because it's a tremendous event, he's playing to win, so of course the best thing to do would be to play it safe). The only part of this video that bothered me was at the end, as the very moment the announcer says, "Remember, there is Sudden Death!" ZeRo just played the evasion game. Again, that was the smart thing to do, but it wasn't very fun to watch, and it disappointed me because I was really hoping to see some crazy action out of Zero Suit Samus. Still, that's just what I wanted. ZeRo wanted to win, and that's perfectly fine, he was the one who was up there playing, not me. Other people, however, did not seem to handle this maturely. I saw a photoshop edit of ZeRo holding that trophy in front of the Twin Towers burning to the ground. That was pretty fucked up and stupid, and I swear anybody who upvoted that on Reddit was a moron.

Then of course, Reggie coming up and telling Hungrybox he was going to kick his ass was gold. Why, do I have a personal vendetta against Hungrybox? No silly, I didn't even know any of these people before I saw this. It was a classic moment because it's Reggie!

Also to add to the disappointment here, I read some interview with one of the players, PewPewU I think was his name, and he said that ZeRo didn't even fully utilize Zero Suit Samus's toolset. I thought I could see a bit of what he said, but more on that later. The good news is, though, that many of the players are saying that Zero Suit Samus is top tier, so when I do get to finally sit down with the game and observe her thoroughly, I am going to have so much fun.

By the way, if you want to see a real finals match with an insane player making insane moves out of Zero Suit Samus, watch the Grand Finals match of Apex 2013: Mew2King versus Salem.***

Last but certainly not least on my highlights reel for the tournament is when Mega Man used his Final Smash. This is literally a classic, cheesy sounding miracle in sports (like when the Heat tied one of last year's finals matches in the last half of a second) coming to life straight from text. Just watch the video and read how I write it out:



"It's the final match of the fan favorites bracket of the first-ever Nintendo-run Smash Bros tournament, for a Smash Bros game that has well yet to be released. Thirty seconds left on the clock. Fans in the audience hunger to see Mega Man draw blood with his Final Smash. The Smash Ball is in the air, but so far he has never succeeded in getting it-- Wait, what's this? Mega Man attained the Smash Ball! He uses his Final Smash, shoots a black hole, seems to miss... But Rosalina walks into it! It's Mega Man's Final Smash! The crowd roars at the Mega Men joining together and taking Rosalina down! The walls are coming down in the house!"

I don't do the video any justice, but just imagine reading something like that and then it suddenly explodes into reality. This was something I honestly lost hope of seeing since the guy playing Mega Man had a terrible time trying to get the Smash Balls that popped up in previous matches. I personally don't care tremendously for Mega Man (though I think he's way more awesome than a certain somebody I've yet to talk about), but I can't deny I really felt the hype for his Final Smash, that was just really cool.

If none of this was enough, there was still more SM4SH news later that night, as Sakurai held a closed doors discussion for the game (though weirdly, there is a video out there showing very small bits of it, only about thirty seconds long). How did he start off the discussion? Why, with another character reveal! Next up we have... Oh... Wait a minute... Oh no...

PAC-MAN???????

That is NOT a fake leak, ladies and gentlemen! That is straight from Nintendo's Super Smash Bros website.

As you may know from my rant about the Prophet of SM4SH, I was a very big opponent against having Pac-Man in the game. I was afraid they were going to use his terrible design in Pac-Man's Ghostly Adventures or whatever the Hell it's called. I was afraid his character, like the Mii, was going to feel out of place and more like a Brawl hack than a real Smash Bros character. Honestly, I also really did not want that "prophet" to be right, and more on that in a moment.

Then I saw the Pac-Man reveal trailer, and I looked at the screenshots in the game, and then I took a breath. It's not as bad as I thought it would be (although that Pac-Land stage for the Wii U looks like crap. I'm interested in playing on it but the design just looks so bad to the eyes). Pac-Man's moveset make nice references to the other Namco-Bandai classics. It felt genuinely designed with respect for the character's franchise, and seeing Sakurai make all these shots of Pac-Man juxtaposed with these other classic video game characters is actually really beautiful. You can get a sense that he is completely in love with what he's doing, and this is probably quite a historical moment in gaming as this seems to be the first game in which all these iconic characters come together. So seeing them dug out of their graves and treated lovingly is in itself a wonderful thing for me to see, so I'm actually really happy with how this came out.

Still, I am a man of my word. Pac-Man is still going to be my punching bag for Zero Suit Samus. If you're a Pac-Man player when this game comes out, watch out! I'll be like when a bull sees red!

I also at least can't deny that 3DS stage looks pretty cool.

Also, I almost forgot about this classic line from the developer roundtable:  A competitive Smash player is trying to challenge Sakurai to see if he can win and help balance the game. Sakurai asked "Have you ever made a game?"

So basically, Sakurai owned somebody tremendously harder and did not even need to play Smash Bros for it. Well done. And one more thing about the roundtable that I found really awesome was that Sakurai said he expected Zero Suit Samus to win that tournament. I feel like this may mean Sakurai is really intending for Zero Suit Samus to be a really awesome character and possibly better than she was in Brawl. Judging from what others are saying about her, it really seems that she has improved a lot, which is crazy because in Brawl she was already an amazing character. Hopefully Sakurai won't tune her down too much if that's what he's thinking of doing after this week.

The rest of Smash Bros at E3 consisted of showcasing from Nintendo's Treehouse department. This was a very enjoyable few hours of watching them play the game, and what I really loved about watching the Treehouse do this (and this goes for every game) is that they all really enjoyed the games. They weren't these really lousy and stupid scripted playthroughs like that god-awful demo of Killer Instinct at last year's Microsoft press conference. Watching them play Super Smash Bros felt a lot like being with other people playing Super Smash Bros, and I was amazed at how well they restrained profanity while being genuinely into the game. I just feel a game like that makes it hard to be that way, ha ha.

Unfortunately I do not have a tremendous amount of things to say about the Treehouse showcasings of this game. That's partially because I missed Wednesday's Treehouse livestream so that I could go and actually play the game at Best Buy all the way in Jacksonville (I had to drive from Tallahasee, which is a three hour drive). The rest of the reasoning though is that it just wasn't too informative for me (it was still amazing to see), so I can't really talk about it. I did catch a highlight of them playing it on the Wii U with the top players of the tournament, and Nate, one of the members of the Treehouse department, got Zero Suit Samus in a random selection and showed off quite a few things that ZeRo didn't really do.

What I did find worth going into detail for was their showcasing of the 3DS version. Sadly, I missed them going over Smash Run, but I did get to play Smash Run when I went to Best Buy, so sit tight while I get there. Nate and some other guy, the same unnamed Treehouse guy who appeared in the tournament, were playing each other on the 3DS version of the game. The characters that were used included Samus, Donkey Kong, Mega Man, Toon Link, Greninja, Pit, Sheik, Bowser, Pikachu, and Yoshi. Yoshi seemed quite fast, but I don't remember very well what he's like in Brawl since I never play as him. They were saying that Yoshi now has a new dash attack that has better knockout power, so that's good I guess. The main gist of this segment though for me concerned the sages. I got to see a lot out of the game's 3DS stages, which were always on my mind with regards to this game. The first stage they played on was the island from Animal Crossing. As we may know already from Sakurai's Miiverse posts, the Treehouse reps said that the stage's layout changes randomly each time it's chosen. There are trees on the stage that bear fruit, most of which heals you except for coconuts. Coconuts can be picked up and thrown at your opponents like the apples from Green Greens. I thought I saw the coconuts explode on impact, which was awkward. A shark came by, but neither of the reps wanted to jump into the water, so I neither A) saw whether swimming mechanics were still in the game (I have a feeling this was already either confirmed/deconfirmed though) and B) saw what the shark would do. Cap'n comes by every now and then as well, but I didn't really see him do anything. Maybe he gives items, I'm not sure.

I cannot remember the exact order in which they played the stages, but I am pretty sure I remember each of them, so I can describe them. The next I remember was the Golden Plains. This was the stage that Sakurai revealed on the "first" day of E3, actually (Tuesday). It is based off something you'd typically find in the classic or New Super Mario Bros. games, and there are coins all over the place. When you collect a hundred of them, you turn gold and I think you move faster, deal more damage, and get harder to knockback for a short time. So it's like the metal box but with speed and possibly less weight mechanics.

Next is the Nintendogs stage, which I'm really happy they chose because I was dying to see what that stage was like. So far there doesn't seem to be all that much to it (still looks fun though), as all I've seen was a random sequence of dropping dog toys and other items (a glass slipper and a hamburger for example) from the ceiling. I keep hearing that the dog interacts but I don't see him doing anything, unless he is tossing the toys and stuff over (though I never saw that happen at all). Nate did say, though, that a cat comes in at some point, so that will pretty much make Nintendogs automatically the best stage.

Gerudo Valley is another stage they played on. This map is a lot similar to Bridge of Eldin in that there is a part of the center of the map that goes out for some time (if not indefinitely here). There are a few platforms, a couple above and a couple beneath the bridge. At the bottom of the map, I think there are spikes or something, because I remember seeing one of the players fall to the bottom and bounce right up with some damage taken. The main thing that makes this map though are the Twinrova sisters, who'll randomly cast fire or ice magic as stage hazards. Fun fact: I completely forgot about them when I played this game and got killed by the ice magic, which if it didn't happen, I probably would've won my first match in SM4SH.

The last stage is Arena Ferox. I honestly have very little to say about this stage, but then again I might not have been really listening. Let me see if I can watch them playing on it again. Okay, so as they put it, it is basically like the Pokémon Stadium stage, where you start off on a flat arena that dynamically shifts and changes form. Unlike the Pokémon Stadium stage, the changes appear to mostly be simple differences in the layout and structure of the platforms. One moment it's the two statues from Brawl's Castle Siege map holding platforms, the next it's a series of gears rotating platforms.

I realize this post is coming out incredibly long, and I still have to talk about Smashfest at Best Buy. So once again, I'm going to have to split up this post. I've spent about a good six hours out of this week just looking at Super Smash Bros stuff alone, and it's all just been truly amazing. To wrap up the stuff I viewed off livestreams, here's a list of some notable character changes that I found from watching.

• Pit has a new Side-B, which thank God because Brawl's Side-B was so annoying. He also has a new Up-B but I either never saw it or I don't remember it at all.
• Sheik has a new Side-B that looks pretty cool, but I don't think it ever did that much damage or knockback. He basically lobs out a grenade, like Sakurai explained in Sheik's character reveal, but what we didn't know then was that his grenade can vacuum opponents into it. Sheik also has a new Down-B, which looks basically a lot like Zero Suit Samus's Down-B, but I don't think the kick is separate from the flip jump. Nothing I saw from that match really indicated to me, however, whether Sheik was any stronger than she was in Brawl.
• Luigi has a new Final Smash in which he pulls out his vacuum from Luigi's Mansion and tornadoes around the stage with it, sucking people into their deaths.
• The Villager seems to be able to reset items entirely with his special move that picks up items and projectiles. During the Wii U segments, a jelly bomb was about to explode, and he picked it up right off the floor. Later, he pulled it out of his pocket, and the bomb appeared to have reset. This is really interesting, but it is not certain whether that will remain in the game.
• Greninja's substitute special seems really contingent on really good timing, much more so than Marth. Or Nate was just screwing it up pretty badly, but it seems to me the counter window consists of less frames. Greninja's recovery is also pretty much Pikachu's. I'll get more into Greninja in the next post.
• Little Mac, thank GOD, cannot one-shot you with his charged up K.O. attack... unless, of course, you rack up a high enough damage percentage.
• Link has a purportedly better dash attack than before.
• Samus's Up-B can sort of spike enemies at the last frame. More on Samus in the next post.
• Zero Suit Samus's new Up-B can connect into a pretty strong kick. I saw a pretty awesome combo where somebody used the iconic Down-A smash and followed that up with an Up-B that connected several hits into one, and ended with a very strong knockback from the follow up kick. As cool as that looked, I honestly still hope her original Up-B is still in the game as a custom move. More on Zero Suit Samus in the next post.

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* Let me briefly explain my gripe with the "prophet" of SM4SH. First off, I hated that everybody seemed to be giving him too much credit, especially when he said Palutena was going to be in the game when her leaks had been out there for months already. Now she's confirmed and I've seen people credit the Prophet. You'd might as well give me credit too because I didn't think those leaks were fake either. The other problem I had with him was that I just simply hated what he was doing. If you know who is going to be in the game, don't tell people! Why would you do that? Thankfully I found out about him well after Little Mac was announced, but my potential surprise at the Mii or Pac-Man being in the game was ruined because he set up the expectation of either seeing them revealed or not. That is what ultimately pisses me off about that idiot. Hell, he even ruined the Palutena reveal, because, for half a moment, I was shouting, "Called it!" and then I wondered if I really had any doubt to begin with because the freaking "prophet" said she would be in the game. I really, really hate that right now. But I guess in the long run, what does it matter? These are characters I was going to end up playing with in the game regardless of whether they were spoiled or not.

So yeah, that's my problem with that asshole. He never e-mailed me, too, that wuss. I'm just going to say that it was Sakurai's and an interpreter's doing, just to troll people and hype them up. I feel much better thinking of it that way.

** This kinda feels a little too much like Dissidia. However, considering it's Nintendo and the same guy who has brought us the previous Smash games, I really doubt this game will be anywhere near as bad as that atrocity.

*** Just watch this, watch how tremendous the hype is. This is literally the best thing I have ever seen out of anything relevant to Smash Bros.



Now that was fun to watch and the way Zero Suit Samus should be played. I wish I could be anywhere near as good as that guy. Hopefully next time my school has a big old Brawl thing I can get sort of far into it with Zero Suit Samus.

Damn It, E3!

They fucking changed the dates on me! Agggghhhhhh! They said it was from the 10th to the 12th, nothing on the 9th! And as it turns out, EVERYTHING was on the 9th! Fuck you too, E3.

Well, at least Nintendo is still sticking to the same schedule I assumed they had, so I can still be on track with my E3 posts concerning them and Smash Bros. Thankfully I wasn't originally planning on writing just after each press conference as I did last year. Instead, I'm going to make a much more condensed, single post recapping the event. Unfortunately, today was my only day out of this week (until Friday I guess) to do that, but since I had no idea E3 was happening, that's all gonna have to wait.

So tomorrow, Nintendo gives their presentation! So excited! After that, on Wednesday, I'm going to Jacksonville for Super Smash Bros.! Then I'll have a more Smash Bros-focused post, hopefully before Friday, and then on Friday I'll start working on the rest of E3.

Oh yeah and my Metroid II essay is coming, things are just kinda busy right now. Well, especially now, with everything going on with E3 running over on top of school. This is gonna be one hectic week for me.