Ok, so I skipped the first two nights. If I’m not feeling it, I’m not feeling it.
Night 3
On Night 3, I recently got a new laptop and was testing it out, so I downloaded Rivals of Aether on Steam. I had bought it a while ago, and have also bought it on XboxOne. And I’ll buy it when it comes to Switch. Such is my love of Smash.
I didn’t play it much, just a little bit of the tutorial. My criticisms of it are the same as before – it looks amateurish and it has no style. It like if the Melee -heads decided to make a game and base it all around advanced tech. Which is basically what it is.
But I’ve got to admit the tutorial really does do a good job of teaching you the advanced techniques and I think it could help me get better at some of those more technical aspects of Smash. I’ll probably get real into eventually.
Night 4
So Simon was the short straw I had drawn last week. I had prepped the previous nights by looking up his info and watching videos. And on Night 4 I started in Training Mode as always. Got used to the character at first. Then I continued to practice some of the Expert Fundamentals I need to work on. Then I tried out his bread and butter combos and kill confirms. His moves are not very fluid to be honest.
Then I played three Level 5 CPUs in local Smash using the SmashCon 2019 ruleset. I was able to beat them pretty easily.
But then I went into Online Quickplay for 10 matches against different opponents. And like I always, I really learned the character there. I think I won 4 out of 10 matches, but honestly two of those I should have lost, my opponents just threw out their wins at the end. Let’s save my analysis of Simon/Richter for the next night.
And I finished off the night with played through Simon’s Classic Mode.
Night 5
Night 5 I went through the exact same routine with Richter. I even played Classic Mode with him after I was done Quickplay. But I only one 2 out of 10 matches, despite having more practice.
So, I think Simon/Richter might be in the bottom 10 characters in the game (or bottom 5 even). They have an amazing neutral game with their three different projectile attacks. Those same attacks can do some awesome edge-guarding. But they suck at pretty much everything else. They have terrible recovery, maybe second only to Little Mac. All of their Up attacks only attack directly above them so your opponent can easily avoid them. Their ground speed is so slow. They have one good tilt and one good aerial.
You can’t approach as a Belmont, you have to put out a projectile wall and then either re-wall or counterattack when the opponent tries to go over or through it. And soon as your opponent gets through neutral you’re done. The Belmonts are too slow to react , their recovery is too poor, and they don’t have enough powerful moves. Once you’re in disadvantage there’s not much you can to get out of it, you’re just going to die.
I really hated playing the Belmonts. Random selection picked Ganondorf for the next night.
Night 6
Ok, so I’ve done Ganondorf before but I didn’t play a full 10 games on Quickplay and I hadn’t completed his Classic Mode, so I didn’t consider him done.
So, I ran through the same rigmarole with Ganondorf. I think I may have won three to four games in Online Quickplay, but again I should have lost some.
Don’t have much to add what I said about Ganondorf before, he’s another low tier hero, but I would put him maybe two tiers above the Belmonts. His recovery is also bad, but not as terrible. He’s probably slower than the Belmonts and around the ground speed of Robin. But he can use his specials for stage movement. His moves really pack a punch however so he gets kills earlier than he should. The downside is he has multiple moves with incredibly long start-up and cooldown. Those moves have Armor on them so they’ll usually finish at least, but you won’t hit your foe, they’ll just leave. At least most people don’t seem to know you can just grab Ganondorf out of those moves.
I don’t know, there’s a lot of stuff going against him and his strengths are easily countered. I guess the combination of his aerials and his specials that give him faster air movement make it okay to play him.
Night 7
So, on Night 7 I downloaded the new version of Project+ – Version 2.0. I was pretty excited about Knuckles joining. And I started out playing Knuckles against random Level 6 CPU on every Tournament Legal stage. Using the most recent Project+ ruleset I could find. To be honest I really dug Knuckles. I think he’s definitely a different character from Sonic in this game and I really like his moveset. Though it did take a while to figure out the usefulness of each move and I’m not sure about Down Smash still.
Then I thought I’d test out mains in Project+ for a bit. Before I started really playing Smash seriously, I was just Ness in every game. Sometimes I would go Pikachu, Kirby, or Link, but Ness was always my guy. I just loved hitting people with the yo-yo and baseball bat. But you know, that doesn’t work when you get past friendly Free-for-Alls. And when, I was first getting more serious in Smash I though I’d just play the top character in the tier list in the games I didn’t play as much. Obviously since I played 64 and Ultimate in tournament I took some actual time choosing mains (which was chronicled in this blog). But I don’t really have main in the remaining Smash titles. I’m thinking maybe Jigglypuff, Marth, or Pikachu for Melee; I don’t care for vanilla Brawl because why I’d every play that again, and maybe a Rosalina & Luma for Smash 4 (but again why would I ever play that again)?
Anyway for Project+ I didn’t just want to choose one of the obvious top tiers, I wanted to choose a character I had some affinity with that was high tier. So, I looked at the official Project M Tier list and the few Project+ tier lists that are out there. That helped me narrow down the characters to try to Pikachu, Zero Suit Samus, Lucas, and Ike.
I did the actual testing of characters by playing five matches against Level 6 CPUs on all Tournament Starter stages. I won all five with Pikachu. I won four out of five with Samus and lost to a Falco. The first match I played with Lucas I lost to a Falco. I played another match with Lucas and lost, and I really wasn’t feeling his moveset. I don’t think his moveset varies this much from Ness in Brawl, I think in Project M and Project + they changed him more. He’s higher on the Tier list, but I hate it and couldn’t get used to it. Then I tried a few matches with Ike and wasn’t winning or feeling it. Lost to Falco again.
I had it on Random most of the time, but Falco kept coming up and I kept losing to him. It’s not like he’s a god in the Tier list he’s just a B level character. I just couldn’t beat him. So after eliminating other options I tried to beat Falco with Pikachu. I lost again, but just barely this time. Then I tried with Knuckles and finally won. These Falcos were on Level 6 the whole time, but they felt like Level 20. The were stringing together long combos against me, always shielding, grabbing, or using the Shine at the exact perfect time. I couldn’t get anything going. Sometimes the Falco would just stand there, but as soon as I approached they would react to whatever I was doing and punish it. Seems like it may be a glitch.
Side tangent – I do really enjoy Project M and Project+. The modders tried to make Brawl a more technical, balanced, and fair game. And I think they succeeded. But they also tried to make it a faster pace game and to add some unique personality to it. I think they succeeded in that as well. The additional characters and stages fit well, but there’s also a sense of fun to them. Rivals of Aether seems like its only about the technical aspects of Smash, Project+ doesn’t lose sight of the fact that Smash is supposed to be a fun game to play with your friends.
Anyway next week, I’m doing Olimar. And hopefully narrowing down my Project+ main between Pikachu and Knuckles?