(Image Courtesy of Nintendo)
With the days counting down, the excitement of the final Super Smash Brothers Ultimate character is overwhelming. Fans have been speculating who this final character will be for months and with the character showcase happening on the 5th of October, fans are itching to see who it will be. Being added into Super Smash Brothers is a huge deal, the game is a celebration of gaming, with characters from Super Mario to Minecraft this is a game that allows for anyone and everyone to come together to play as their favorite gaming icons.
While on the surface having another character added to the game sounds exciting, being able to play as someone new with a unique move set is something that everyone wants. For some players having a new character means a change in the competitive landscape. Many players of Super Smash Brothers play for fun and do it without ever thinking about trying to compete and be the best they can be at the game. Others take up the challenge to compete and travel to tournaments for the chance of winning money and getting sponsorships. I sat down with multiple Smash Ultimate competitors to get their thoughts and opinions on the final character.
James “Fumbledore” Scott class of 21
Who are you personally hoping to see added to the game?
“I'm hoping to see either Master Chief or a selection of characters from Team Fortress 2. It's difficult to look at video games, and especially the first-person shooter genre, without encountering Master Chief. He's truly one of the last icons of gaming that has yet to be added. The Team Fortress 2 characters are a personal hope of mine. I have such a deep personal connection with them it would be hard for me to not want those characters, as they helped shape the foundation of many shooters for years to come.”
With other characters being added to the game, how has it affected the game competitively from your perspective?
“Downloadable content (DLC) by its nature changes how the competitive meta evolved due to many top players migrating to the newer characters. MKLeo, the number 1 player in the world, switching to Joker when Joker was released into the game and Tweek, the 2nd best player, switching to Sephiroth influences lower-level players and tier lists. Separately from top level play, it means new matchups for preexisting players to learn and a game with 80+ characters. It's a tall order to learn 12 more matchups.”
“DLC characters, as a part of the design of them, tend to get more quirks and features than their base game counterparts. This makes learning both the character and the matchup for playing against them very complex. It's not always fun, but it is an interesting design from Nintendo. Overall, the DLC changes the landscape of the game significantly, both for the players of the DLC and those who must play around them”
Sam “Sam64” Kaplan class of 21
(Courtesy of Clash Tournaments)
Who are you personally hoping to see added to the game?
“I suppose at this point all I could hope for is Phoenix Wright. Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 (UMVC3) did him amazingly, which shows he can obviously be done in a platform fighter as well. However, other than that, I just want to see something interesting”.
With other characters being added to the game how has it affected the game competitively from your perspective?
“Pretty much every character from Fighter Pass Two has brought their own interesting mechanic to the game and I love that stuff. Things like Hero’s magic points and menu, Steve having resources, I find that all very fun. On the other hand, I find that characters who do not have those, minus Joker, are the strongest ones. Characters who play Smash Ultimate fundamentally very well are the strongest ones, which is why characters like Joker and Pyra/Mythra are probably the best out of the DLC. I want to see a character that’s more unique than them but can still hold their own at a high level of play. Phoenix Wright infamously is horrible in UMVC3 until reaching turnabout mode, where he becomes one of the best characters for limited time, so here’s hoping it’s him and he can be just as unique”.
Joseph “Che” Castaner Professional Player Sponsored by Pirate Hackers
(Courtesy of Vermont Smash)
Who are you personally hoping to see added to the game?
I don’t expect it to happen, but I’d love to see another SEGA representative added to the game. NiGHTS is my dream character.
With other characters being added to the game how has it affected the game competitively from your perspective?
Balance is the biggest issue when it comes to new DLC characters being added. There’s an added purchase on top of the original game’s price that Nintendo has to justify. This means that they have an incentive to make the character much stronger than the base game’s characters. As such, we have ended up with a whole host of characters who have gimmicks so strong they define not only their own gameplay, but the way everyone else in the game has to interact with them. They place the impetus on the enemy to adapt and put in effort to fight you while your tools are usually strong enough that you can ignore a lot of their attacks. This leads to the competitive landscape becoming saturated with people switching to playing these new DLC characters since at the end of the day, winning is the goal and where the money’s at, and these DLC characters give you the best chances, so why not play them? It often makes the game less fun to watch from a spectator’s perspective as well, since people love to see character variety. If the DLC characters are annoying to play against or are absurdly strong, then it destroys people’s will to play and players face a choice: drop the game since it’s not fun anymore or make the switch to the DLC as well. This can annihilate a competitive scene.
It was a pleasure getting insight from these different competitors and hearing their hopes for the final character. With only a few days remaining before the final release, only time will tell who gets their spot amongst gaming icons.
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