So, on Night One I decided to check out Bayonetta in Smash 4. Bayonetta is pretty universally regarded as the top of the tier list for this game. I should have practiced some in training mode but decided to just take her into tournament style matches instead.
So, I played every tournament legal stage against Level 9 CPUs again, this time with Bayonetta. Once again I didn’t win. But I do get why Bayonetta’s so good in this game. She’s significantly fast, and can also combo one special move into another. I still don’t love Smash 4, but playing as Bayonetta is more fun than playing as Ness.
On Night Two I took a break. On Night Three and Four I moved on to Ultimate. First I played some Online Quickplay matches. Not doing as bad now, winning about every third match at this point. But I’m still struggling with short hopping instead of full jumps, shielding at the appropriate times, and not getting juggled. I need to work on my smash di, I suppose.
Then on both nights, I continued my playthrough of World of Light. Before I started this marathon I had restarted WOL on Normal difficulty. I was planning on seeing how far I could complete the default difficulty without using any spirits. Not that I would never use any spirits or adjust the difficulty, but I wanted to leave those options as last resorts.
I was still very close to the beginning so I didn’t have too much trouble the first two nights. I only had a few characters unlocked. The main point I got stuck on was fighting a Lucario with Captain Falcon. I’m trying to play as each character until I unlock the next one. But it was just no good, I had to switch to Kirby. I beat it very easily with Kirby, I’ve just more used to his moveset.
On Days Five and Six I continued World of Light only. On Day Five I gave up and finally started to use spirits when I got stuck and also upgraded my character. I was stuck at multiple points on the map and didn’t really have a choice. The mode is designed for using spirits so I didn’t feel too bad. Every time I beat where I got stuck I turned the spirits back off again. And I’m still returning to Kirby each time I’m really stuck.
World of Light is better to prep for actual matches than most other Smash single-player modes. On Normal difficulty, it’s really helping me learn to block and then punish. Though no actual person is going to let themselves be punished with smash attacks like the CPUs consistently do.
Still, compared to other 1P modes in the past this feels like I”m actually improving my Smash Bros.’s skills, even if only in small increments. I’m still trying to use the last fighter unlocked as much as I can until I unlock the next one. That’s helping me learn more characters as well. I did surprisingly well with Yoshi, he may be a viable pocket character in the future.
On Day Seven, I went back to my actual N64. Played through 1P Mode two more times, still working on unlocking the Mushroom Kingdom stage. I must have played through this at least 15 times already, but it really does feel classic. Surprisingly I’m not completely fed up with it. It really holds up as an arcade type mode. Certainly more than any similar mode in any other Smash game.
Next week, I’m looking forward to continuing with World of Light in Ultimate and hopefully re-unlocking everything in Smash 64 for my physical cartridge.