So, I’m back again with more Smash Bros Diaries! But to be honest with the Oscars coming up I may not be updating the next two weeks.
I did play during my break a bit, not much but messed with some Amiibos, did some practicing with Ness, and I tried out both Mewtwo and Roy one night each.
At the beginning of this week I listened to some more of the Smash Bros. Podcast. I also watched JoeK’s 4 Key Mistakes Mid-Level Players Make. Which was a good video, I think his content is pretty informative. Not going to go into each point, but his last one was to play with a character you think you can win with which hit home. I stopped maining Ness because of his trash recovery and I feel like a better Smash player using Joker as my main. Also, Dr. Mario was on my list of characters to try maining, but now I’m going to cross him off. His recovery is awful, I don’t want to be constantly complaining about it.
But anyways my planned focuses for this week weren’t too elaborate. 1. Continue to work on short hopping and fast falling. 2. Don’t move for no reason, have a purpose for each button input 3. Mix up your offensive approach and don’t take unsafe options. 4. Don’t use the same neutral strategy each time. 5. Continue testing out the roster.
But I didn’t really end up working on any my planned focuses.
Night One
So actually two things happened on Night One. Firstly, I finally purchased Super Smash Bros for 3DS. And secondly I tried out Chrom for the night in Ultimate. Same drill as always – Training Mode, a few matches against Level 5 CPUs, and then five Online matches. Originally, I was going to ignore Echo Fighters altogether, but when there are discernible differences I think I’m going to try both characters. Like I’m not going give both Simon and Richter a go, but I will lab Ryu one night and Ken another night.
Online I didn’t too badly. Of the five Online matches I counted, I won two of them. I was running into a lot of lag, some matches were just unplayable. I actually quit out of the game and checked my Switch’s internet. I have to remember to make sure it’s on the Wired Connection before each time I play Online. I don’t think it always swithces back from Wifi when I put it back in the dock.
Ok, so what do we think of Chrom? I think he’s not as good as Roy. Roy’s speed is a better advantage in Ultimate than Chrom’s power. That’s just were the games’ meta is currently at. His recovery felt worse, but that might just because he’s slower and heavier. He does have some decent attacks – his Side-B, his Nair, and Fair are great for Spacing. He can catch recoveries with almost all his Smashes. But better players are going to beat you. I played against a Roy and they just bodied me. Twice they hit Chrom offstage and then hit him again before I could input anything, and then there was no way I could recover.
Night Two
Night Two I only played Super Smash Bros for 3DS. I played a few rounds of Smash Run which is like a timed Subspace Emissary mode. During the Adventure part you build up your stats. And then you fight the CPUs with varying stats at the end as well. I didn’t really like it to be honest. The Adventure portion wasn’t great and then I never had good stats to even beat the Level 1 CPUs.
I played more Smash Mode. Put the settings on 3 Stock, no Items, and tried out a few stages I thought would be competitive against Level 3-6 CPUs with Bayonetta. In the end only Final Destination and Battlefield were the competitive stages I thought were fair.
Then I went down the tier list playing against Random Level 6 CPUs.
That was fun, I enjoy Smash Bros. obviously and this is a edcent version of it on the 3DS. Something fun to do with friends and family on long roads trips or in instances where you don’t have your Switch. But it just felt like the Junior Version of Smash 4 to me the whole time. The 3DS has decent controls but it’s nothing compared to having an actual controller in your hand.
And this Night I bought the DLC Stage and Character bundles for the 3DS game.
Night 3
Night 3 I was pretty tired. I just continued to play Smash against Level 6 CPUs in Smash 3DS. I continued down the Tier List from Smash Boards. I was able to unlock Ness and Falco. I continued to play only Battlefield and Omega form stages. I still wasn’t totally into the control schemes, the stages, or the camera, but the cel-shading look I was really getting into it.
Night 4
Night 4 was more 3DS. Unlocked Wario in Smash. Played and beat Classic Mode with Ness, which is setup like a board game. Played All-Star Mode with Bayonetta and beat it. You fight every character in the game in groups of the year of their debuts. Checked out the Home-Run Contest and Target Blast. Target Blast you hit a bomb and try to blow up as much stuff as you can. Not as good as basic Home-Run Contest. Finished with Multi-Man Smash modes. Beat 10-Man Smash, 100-Man Smash, and 3-Minute Smash. Switching between Ness and Bayonetta. Those modes are pretty easy since you just have to get any decent hit in to KO your opponents. There are some giant CPUs that show up near the end, but they are also easy to KO.
3DS feels like more of pick-up-and-play game than the console Smashes. Which is both a good and bad thing. When I want to practice in Ultimate, I always have to make sure I have at least 45 minutes to an hour to play. Which can be difficult a lot of the time. The 3DS game I’m just picking up whenever I have a few spare minutes, and sometimes suspending the game in the middle of the battle. I guess that’s technically possible on the Switch, but I don’t think I could do it. The 3DS game just feels inherently less serious.
Nights 5-6
Nights 5-6 I continued to play Smash 3DS. I concentrated on unlocking all achievements and continuing down the tier list. I unlocked Lucina, Dark Pit, and Dr. Mario.
Unlocking the achievements meant playing a few different modes.I went to Training Mode and used Ness to get the 10 or more combos achievements. Which wasn’t too hard, PKFire to Grab to pummel to Up Throw to Up Air. Went to Home-Run Contest to get over 1000 feet. It took a few tries but I was able to to do it. I think with Wario. The hardest achievement was beat Classic Mode on 3.0 or higher. If you die the intensity automatically goes down. I wasn’t able to clear it with Ness. Especially since I accidentally chose to fight Crazy Hand and Master Hand last instead of just Master Hand. On the third try I switched to Kirby and was able to beat clear it without dying on 3.5 and unlocked the achievement. I also played Trophy Rush which I honestly don’t even remember what it was, just picking up points or something. And I had to play more Smash Run to get an achievement of getting multiple item types. Smash Run was still the least fun.
Night 7
No time for Smash on Night 7.
Next week (this week once this post is up), Byleth is releasing. And the next Nintendo Smash Bros. Online Open is happening! I was going to spend the week labbing out Byleth, but instead I need to get my current three characters ready for primetime.