the Smash Bros Diaries – Week 28 – Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch)

Ok, so I’m back after the Thanksgiving break. Let’s start with what I was planning to practice on this week.

• Shorthops
• Moving without jumping
• Edge-guarding
• Playing other characters
• Practice Parrying/Teching
• Practice kill confirms/combos against low-level CPU for 99 stocks

In Zero’s “The Best Ways to Train” video he says one of the best ways to train is to practice against a low-level CPU for 99 stocks on a Final Destination stage. Practice your combos, get your opponent offstage and then finish the stock.

So, not this week but the weekend before I di this. I practiced against R.O.B. with Joker. Joker’s main kill confirm combo is the Short Hop Forward Air to Upsmash. Or the MKLeo combo of Short Hop Forward Air to Drag Down Up Air to UpSmash. But I could never get the Short Fair to connect with R.O.B., it’s like he’s both too big and too short at the same time. I was able to get the hang of the Upthrow to Drag down Up Air. Though I can’t get it to loop yet, like the more advanced Joker players.

I played until I had taken 50 stocks off of R.O.B. I think I still have a lot of work on my combos and edge-guarding. I mean I should be able to connect a Short Hop Fair on any character. The practice did help me get the timing down of when to unleash the follow-up attacks on R.O.B. Like when to hit him when he’s recovering from offstage or descending from above.

Night One

Night One I had much more extra time than I usually have. I started out test-playing Captain Falcon. He doesn’t have much in the way of combos. But he’s super fast and pretty much all of his Special Moves and Smash attacks are Kill confirms by themselves. His recovery is trash in Ultimate. I seem to remember it being pretty decent in Smash 64. After practicing in Training Mode I took on a Level 5 CPU three times. I won 2 out of 3 times. One of the times I self-destructed too much. Then I went online and lost three times in Online Quickplay. Though I came close to beating a Joker, but he countered my Falcon Punch three times! Joker is the best character obvs.

What did I learn my playing Captain Falcon for one night? The obvious – don’t get hit by him and throw him offstage since his recovery is poor.

Then I went back to the World of Light! I had fun this time, probably because I had my laptop opened to IGN’s World of Light guide the entire time. I had just unlocked Dark Pit the last time I played World of Light. On Night One I was able to unlock Ken and Robin. Ken I only played one match as, but Robin I played a little more. Robin is a character I want to put some decent time in to figure out.

I also beat Dracula. I was going to destroy all the ghosts to unlock Richter but than ran out of time.

Night Two

Night Two I spent learning all about Jigglypuff. Didn’t really get any combos down, but did finally figure out you have to use Rest from below not above. Not sure why I’ve never realized that before?

I just barely beat the first Level 5 CPU I practiced against. But I pretty handily defeated the next two.

Then I went into online quickplay. I got destroyed in the first two matches. But then I played a Captain Falcon in the third match. I was able to use my knowledge from the night before to help with the matchup. The Captain Falcon got out to an early stock lead. But then I played patiently and tried to bait him offstage to exploit his bad recovery. It worked for a while and we were down to last stocks, but then he Falcon Punched me to death.

I still think Jigglypuff is one of the worst characters in Ultimate (not in Melee or 64 where she can be really good). I’m not sure why I have so much trouble playing against Jigglypuff. Good Puff players are good at countering and edge guarding, which I suppose exploits the weakness in my game. But in the future I know when facing Puff – don’t get above her, her attacks are best as counters, and she has amazing offstage recovery and edge-guarding. So I’m still not exactly sure what I should do? Stay ground-based and concentrate on kill-confirms?

Night Three

Night Two I was pretty tired and wasn’t down for learning the ins and outs of a character. So I returned to World of Light. Following IGN’s Guide, I defeated all the ghosts in Dracula’s Castle and unlocked Richter.

Then I went to the Dark Realm North, completed that and unlocked Rosalina G Luma. Playing through Dark Realm North with Richter I got a bit more hang of him. You really have to spam the projectiles.

After unlocking Rosalina G Luma I went back to the Mysterious Dimension, but after looking at the guide I realized I had unlocked all the Fighters there previously. And on Night One I had unlocked the Dharkon Boss fight but assumed I would unlock some more characters before I would face him.

But after Richter and Rosalina there weren’t anymore so I fought Dharkon. I did have to change the difficulty from Normal to Easy and switch to Joker to complete it. The fight was okay but didn’t seem too different from earlier boss fights.

After defeating Dharkon there’s a small cutscene where Dharkon and Galeem clash. Which got me in the mood for completing the final boss fight. But then when you go to the next area it’s a whole set of stages! So I turned the game off and went to bed.

This is the problem with the World of Light. When I’m following a guide and getting in a groove it’s fun. But it’s just bloated with content, and content that’s repetitive. Any narrative momentum is constantly being killed by the grind.

Nights Four, Five, and Six I was too exhausted to play anything.

Night Seven

Night Seven I tore through some more World of Light. I started the Final Battle section. I was doing so well I thought that I had left the difficulty setting on Easy. I had not, but I do I have nearly every skill orb at this point and am always playing each match with Spirits on. Still, I feel like I’ve really improved since I first started re-playing World of Light on Normal.

I beat Crazy Hand and Master Hand twice. I unlocked Dark Samus, Bayonetta, Roy, and Palutena. I turned it off right after I unlocked Palutena.

I actually didn’t use a guide for Night Seven but it does like I was close to the end after unlocking Palutena. That should have been the last fighter to unlock, but it looks like a missed one of the Mii characters along the way. I’ll have to go back and unlock that. Looking at the Adventure Achievements it looks like I never unlocked the Gym either. I’ll have to go back and catch that as well. I only unlocked a few dojos, not really all that into them since every buff they give also gives you a nerf. Anyway, I decided I wanted to get all the Adventure Achievements while I’m finishing up this Story Mode.

Some thoughts on the characters that I played on Night Seven. Rosalina & Luma is a pretty low tier character. Nothing comes out fast, nothing does much damage, and when Rosalina is without Luma she’s pretty useless. It seems like this was a good character in Smash 4 (Dabuz won Smash 4 Singles with her at Super Smash Con 2019), but it seems the changes made the moveset in Ultimate make Rosalina an unviable character.

Bayonetta isn’t the Smash god she was in Smash 4, but she’s decent. Her Smash Attacks are still insanely powerful and her special moves are still quick enough to combo into each other. And if you’re playing with Final Smashes On, her Final Smash is still great. She’s still so fast. I still don’t think I’ll ever by a Bayo main, but she’s good enough to be a pain to play against.

Roy I really enjoyed playing as. I tried and failed to be a Lucina main (something just inherently unfun about that character) but Roy is nice to play. His Double-Edge Dance is so good in so many situations. And I’m getting better at the Counter with Swordies thanks to playing as Joker. His recovery though is not so great. It’s better than Chrom’s, but not as good as Lucina and Marth’s. I did very well with Roy in World of Light, but I think his recovery is what would keep me from maining him.

Dark Samus I played a lot of on Night Seven. I turned to her for every Crazy/Master Hand battle. She just has the right moveset to counter those mini-bosses. I do think Dark Samus is better than normal Samus. I’m not sure why I think that I feel like I can kill faster with her. Not sure if that’s true or not. Another character I don’t think I would ever main, if I was going to learn a projectile character the correct on is Snake right?

So, yes World of Light somehow drew me in this week. Honestly I was hoping to play more. However, it looks like I need to take another week off. I’m getting a bad case of gamer’s thumb and have to lay off videogames for a while. I work on computers all day so I can’t avoid using my thumbs completely, so the videogames lose out.

When I come back to playing, I’m going to try stretching more. I have been following the stretches of Dr. Caitlin McGee and they have been helping me not have the carpal tunnel wrist and palm pain. I also use a carpal tunnel glove for my wrist. So, I’m going to try to add the stretches of Dr. Harrison from this video as well. And I also ordered some thumb braces. I’m getting older; going forward I need to remember to stretch out my hands and thumbs before and after gaming and once every hour.

So, I’ll be back in two weeks hopefully. And I’ll finally finish World of Light!