And we keep on trucking with Ultimate!
Choosing a new main
So this week I tested out Wario. I must confess he was the character I was least looking forward to trying out. I have never been drawn to this character outside of Smash, and as a Smash fighter, he seemed like a strong character that required more work than others to be good with.
I was pleasantly surprised though. Wario is never out of the fight, even when he’s down 3-1. His Bite special restores health and a charged Wario Waft can take an opponents stock quickly. And he’s a bit of a heavier character, so he can soak up a lot of damage, while he’s putting his opponents up to kill percentage. His aerials attacks are very good at adding damage up quickly. If I figured out his combos I could probably build damage percents even farther. And offstage his down-aerial is such a powerful spike. I was never very successful at spikes with other characters, even in friendlies or against the CPU. But I can get a spike with Wario’s down aerial against Level 7 CPUs. It might be a case of finally getting comfortable offstage in general though.
I don’t think he’s going to be my main or a secondary though. His neutral game isn’t great. Two of his specials have to recharge after use. And his recovery is merely okay. His up B doesn’t reach as high as other fighters. You can chain the Side-B Wario Bike to the Up-B for farther recoveries, but it’s not simple to pull off. By the end of the week, I was still dying when I should not have.
Going a little more into the neutral game, it ended up being a problem for me. Bite is one of his best neutral moves. But I kept accidentally pulling out his bike because I was moving side to side. And Bike can be good for neutral spacing, but I then you don’t have it for recovery later. When you get offstage with 90% or above, you pretty much have to have the bike to make it back to the ledge. So, I never really got his neutral game down.
I won’t be playing Wario seriously in the future, but I do think I found a good character to pull out against friends. He’s the perfect character for trash-talking.
My week with Wario went like this. Beginning of the week – not excited to test out Wario, but I guess I’ll give it a try. First few days – Wow, Wario has some great moves, but his recovery is lacking. Middle of the week – Wario is never out of a match and his moveset can be annoying to play against, -he’s a good character to style on your friends with. Last few days of the week – Wow, I’m getting better at Wario’s recovery and I’m really playing well as Wario. Is he a potential secondary or pocket character? Could I end up being a Wario main? End of the week – Wario is way more fun to play than I thought he would be, but he’s not going to be a main or secondary for me. He’s too similar to Ness – poor recovery, over-reliance on the big hits, a good aerial and combo games but one that can easily be countered by fast characters and swordies. I do think he’s easier to play than Ness, but ironically Ness can actual recover from further away if you hit your PKthunder right.
After trying out Wario I am excited to continue testing mains however. This week gave me hope that trying out new mains can be fun and I still have a chance to discover something new.
Training Mode
On Night One I mainly just tested out Wario’s moves. On Night Two I tried out some of his basic combos. On Night Three I practiced some of Wario’s recovery and edgeguarding techniques.
I practiced parrying every night this week. On Nights One and Two I got up to six consecutive parries. I’m moving on to the next technique next week. It’s hard to get a lot of parries in a row because you have to wait for your shield to recharge. I kept practicing it every night.
On Night Four I practiced the Wario Waft. You don’t always have to use it from above, as long as your opponent is you immediate vicinity you can unleash it.
On Nights Three through Seven, I practiced Combos as well. I also practice edgeguarding and edge recoveries with Wario.
Stage Testing
I added Skyloft after Night One. The platforms are angled a bit, but I don’t think any characters have a particular advantage with Hazards Off.
After Night Two I added PictoChat2. It’s a completely flat stage like Final Destination, but it’s small. I think that adds some nice variety to the stage selections even if it clearly favors certain characters.
No additional stages added Night Three. WarioWare,Inc was the only one that came close. With Hazards Off it’s just a small, flat stage with platforms. Which would be a fine level, but the backgroundthrobs and I find it very distracting.
No additional stages added Night Four. On Night Five I played the remaining “bubble” stages – Big Battlefield, Kongo Jungle, and Dreamland. Big Battlefield is just that – too big for a one-on-one match. I don’t think Kongo Jungle particularly favors any characters, but it has a few too many things against it. It’s both too large and too small. The actual stage area isn’t very big but the offstage areas are. The main platform has slants on each side. I don’t think it’s feasible.
Dreamland I’m adding as a playable stage. It’s layout is what Battlefield is based on. It’s the only legal stage ins Smash 64 tournaments and in Ultimate with Hazards Off, there’s no Whispy to mess up or aid recoveries. The reason it’s usually banned is it’s too similar to battlefield. Which doesn’t matter to me, my whole thing is adding variety to friendly competition. We just need to change the music each time, because I’ve heard that damn song way too many times.
So, I’ve completed my stage testing! I’ve got much bigger and more varied stage list. This should make friendlies, more fun! At least at my house.
VS. CPU
Played against three Level 5 CPUs with Wario while testing on Night One. Testing out both stages and Wario that is. Was able to win each match, though I did have to come back down stocks 3-1 in the last match. That’s because I didn’t jump off the bike in time and died twice.
Played vs Level 6 CPUs with Wario on Night Two. Almost lost to Jigglypuff, but came back down 3-1. Maybe I’m just bad against Jigglypuff? Lost to Ridley, but then was able to win the rematch. The Wario Waft is insane.
Played Level 7 CPUs with Wario on Night Three. I only lost 1 of out of 3 and that was because I self-destructed. Also, I easily defeated a Jigglypuff! Maybe I slew my Jigglypuff demon?
Played Level 8 CPUs with Wario on Night Four. I won all three matches! Maybe I was just getting better with Wario? Or just in general. But, well placed Wario Wafts were crucial elements of the victories.
Played Level 9 CPUs on Night Five. I lost all three matches, but they were close.
World of Light
On Night One I was already over this. Continued on the dark map. Didn’t unlock any new fighters or even see any new Fighter spaces. I played for a bit as well.
There’s really no point to continue to complain about how unfair some of the challenges are. I’ve laid out my grievances over and over.
On Night Two finally unlocked a new character. Was able to open up some new paths and unlock R.O.B. Then after just a few stages was able to unlock Greninja. Then I called it a night. Also are R.O.B. and Greninja bad guys?
I played some more on Night Three until I unlocked Wolf. Then I played a few more levels but didn’t unlock any more characters.
On Night Four I unlocked Ike, and then very quickly MewTwo and then MetaKnight. Then I defeated the miniboss Marx and didn’t know what do to. Marx is another Master Hand-like. The battle was fine, different enough from Master Hand, Crazy Hand, Tabuu, and others. But I’m so over not knowing where do go next.
And you don’t just unlock villains on the dark map. It is kind of weird the only villain unlocked on the first map was Bowser though.
On Night Five I still didn’t know where to go. I wandered around beating spaces that looked like they might go somewhere. I unlocked Corrin and then Luigi. And then I didn’t know where to go again.
On Night Six I was still wondering around, I defeated a few spaces but didn’t’ get anywhere.
On Night Seven I finally broke down and just looked up a walkthrough. That helped me unlock one more path, and then unlock King K. Rool. And then I turned the game off.
So, I said I wouldn’t complain anymore, but World of Light is just so poorly designed. After a certain point, it’s never really clear what do you next. But it’s not like it’s an open world that is fun to explore. It’s basically a giant board game. But board games usually have clearly defined paths to follow. So, I’m forced to look up walkthroughs so I know what do next. And that pretty much takes any of the fun left out of it. Okay, complaining time over.
So there are some things I do like about World of Light. One – it’s a good way to test out new characters and figure out matchups. Every character unlock is on the Omega stage of that character’s series. So, you get to face each character in FD like conditions. Which is a good way to learn the matchup. And then I like to switch to the character I just unlocked, which is forcing me to play as characters I usually would not.
Also, playing through this mode does help improve your skills. Yes, a lot of the conditions are crap and don’t test your skill at all. But just the sheer length of this mode ups your skills. If you play Smash for 30 hours or more you’re going to get better at it no matter what mode you were in. Also, some of the conditions are helpful. Let’s say there’s a stage where the condition is to defeat a Donkey Kong that favors his Down B special. Guess what? After you beat that stage, you’re going to know what to against DK’s Down special.
Online Quickplay
The crucial part of choosing a new main – Online Quickplay. I had to see how well I did with Wario against live opponents. As expected, not as well as against the CPU.
On Night Five I played four matches with Hazards Off. And got lucky with four playable stages. First I played against a Pokemon Trainer and lost two matches, the first one very handily. Though I lost one stock as a self destruct. The second was closer, but that because my opponent self destructed. It was a tough matchup, I couldn’t catch Squirtle to put any damage on him. And when they switched to Ivysaur I was getting stuck in combos. Then, I lost twice to a Ganondorf. I should have won both matches. They were charging up their specials and the Smash attacks. I could have won if I had been more patient. Instead, I kept jumping into attacks that killed me.
On Night Six I played four matches with my preferences set to Omega forms. The first three matches were so laggy. I won one of the laggy matches, but I don’t feel like my win really counted because the lag was messing up everything. The fourth match was the only one that had a decent connection. I lost to Pikachu and I think barely got his damage over 30%. I think Wario also struggles with smaller characters. Or maybe it’s just me. And I struggle with all characters.
But I did finally get an Online Tournament win! Though it was One Stock match and my opponent accidentally jumped off the platform. And then I basically did the same thing in the next round and lost.
On Night Seven I played Six matches with my preferences set to Battlefied forms. I lost each match, but at least I had good connections each time and was able to rematch each opponent. Though not every match was on Battlefield forms. So I lost twice to three different players. I didn’t feel like I got my butt handed to me in any match though. Even if I was never ahead, I never felt completely out of any match. Though I was missing the Wario Waft the majority of the time. And I used it too early by accident a number of times. And I once again lost to a Jigglypuff.
So I went 1-9 in Online Quickplay this week and won one match in an online tournament, so a typical week online.
Another Break
So, yet another break is coming up. I have an exam coming in that I need to concentrate on so it will be the middle of next month before I can play Smash every day. Or maybe longer than that, because the Middleburg Film Festival is also coming up next month. So, I’m not sure when I’ll return to this series.
I probably will play Smash during the 2-3 week break. Maybe I’ll even beat World of Light! But I won’t be taking it as seriously and probably won’t be testing mains? Maybe the ones I’m only going to play for one Night.
So until then, Smash on, bro.