So, this week Min-Min from ARMS was announced as the next DLC fighter for Ultimate. Also, I tried out at few more characters.
First off for the ARMS character, I was assuming it would be Spring Man/Ribbon Girl. They’re the mascots of ARMS and are similar enough in size and move list they could be separate costumes but one Smash character. I’m sure most people wanted Twintelle, the internet’s ARMS waifu, but that always seemed like a long shot since she doesn’t actually punch with her arms. Honestly I was hoping for a bit of a troll from Nintendo with one of the less popular characters. Lola Pop would have been so hilarious. Min-Min looks interesting, but also a very different way to play. But that’ll probably be for next week.
This week I tried out Toon Link, Banjo & Kazooie, Hero, and Ganondorf.
I’ve played a decent amount of Young Link, so I didn’t think adjusting to Toon Link would be hard. And it wasn’t, but I think I actually enjoyed playing as Toon Link a little more. Like always, I studied the character, worked on his moves and combos in Training Mode, warmed up against Level 6 CPUs and then went online. This week I also continued to work on my teching against the wall, my neutral game, and my edgeguarding. I did alright with Toon Link, won three of 10. I lost a to a Young Link even though I had a 2-1 stock lead at one point. As the match went on he caught on to my tricks. I lost a few games after having stock leads. I was finding it easier to kill as Toon Link than I usually do as Young Link. I think his kill confirms are easier to perform and come more naturally. But I was dying earlier because of his weight. I would start out doing okay in neutral but I had trouble juggling the arrows, bombs, and boomerangs, and using them correctly. Eventually I would get predictable and then get punished.
I need to try out regular Link again, but honestly right now I think Toon Link is the best Link for me. But I don’t think any are characters for me. Which is shame because I really need an anti-sword counter-pick.
Banjo & Kazooie I tried a bit when he first came out, but the character didn’t really grab me. I only played him for a day or two. One night my friend beat my multiple times with the Side-B and I found that incredibly annoying. Anyway I went through the same prep with Banjo as I did with Toon Link. Going online I actually won four or five out of 10 matches. And in my Win Percentage for the last 10 Banjo is at the top (at least until the end of the week). I really enjoyed playing as B & K. I think this character warrants a week try-out.
He’s got a number of strengths. Great recovery – Side-B for horizontal and Up-B for vertical. With his grenades and his eggs he can really control neutral. He’s got an okay disadvantage state. His Smash attacks aren’t super powerful, but they can kill and they don’t lag too much. He’s got pretty good aerials that can cover the air. he can continually harass recovering characters with his projectiles while edge-guarding. Finally, his down throw buries which can lead to easy kill confirms at high percents.
So what’s the bad news? His Side-B only has five uses per stock. That’s his most powerful tool since it’s used for neutral spacing, edge-guarding, and taking stocks. But the opponent could just jump over it or block it. His overall speed on the ground is pretty slow. He’s a little faster in the air but not by much. In some ways he plays like a heavyweight character but he’s between heavyweight and middleweight mass so he won’t live as long as bigger characters.
I really enjoyed playing Banjo. The problem is he doesn’t cover any of the match-ups I need covered from my other characters. Sure he may be okay against swordies, but I still think they have the advantage. I played a few and don’t think I beat any of them. Also, just as a side note one of his worst match-ups is Joker. Joker’s speed, counter, and projectiles negate most of what Banjo does well.
The third character I tried was Hero. Hero is hot garbage. I did not enjoy playing as him. Same as always trying him out – training room combos, warm-up against CPU, then trying out in Online Quickplay. He is definitely not a character for me.
So, what are his strengths? His specials are all really good. Down-B is the magic menu that has multiple crazy magic attacks. Neutral-B and Side-B are his fireball and lightning specials that have various powers and ranges. They are all pretty good for edge-guarding. His Up-B is good recovery tool and also has a hitbox that affect opponents. His Smash attacks have a random element where they sometimes hit with a critical hit and kill incredibly early. He has some decent tilts.
But his weaknesses vastly outweigh his strengths. His Down-B spells are very powerful but they only go straight in front of him so they’re very easy to dodge. Aside from the critical hits, his Smash attacks aren’t great. His aerials are useless compared to most other characters. He’s not a snail but he doesn’t really have a speed advantage against anyone. All of his specials require MP, when it runs out he can’t do any of his specials. The MP is also constantly refilling, but after three or so special attacks you usually have to wait before you can use another. His disadvantage isn’t great. You could use your special attacks, but his aerials don’t work well for resetting.
Hero is really not a character for me. Watching your opponent instead of your fighter is critical in winning in Smash. With Hero you either have to look at your character or make blind selections. Sometimes I didn’t have time so I just blind selected the Down-B spell. That oftentimes doesn’t work out. You really need to wait until your opponent is offstage and then use
Down-B so you can select what you want. I just had a hard time with him, once I started losing there was not much I could do to bring it back. The specials where too predictable and took too long.
The last character I tried out this week was Ganondorf. I had given him a day earlier, but this time I played 10 total matches. And I streamed it here – https://www.twitch.tv/mark_the_stampede . I was expecting to lose but I did supringly well wiht him. I won 6 out of 10 matches! Crazy.
Ganondorf’s strenthgts and weakness are very easy to list. Pros – very strong, very heavy, moves kill very easy, good combo breakers. Cons – very very slow, poor recovery, very hard to to fight small characters, fast characters, projectile characters, or sword characters. You can tell he has a lot of bad match-ups.
I think one of the reasons I did so well with Ganondorf and do so well with Kirby is that it forces me to read my opponent and predict their next moves. He’s so slow if I’m not paying attention I have no way of getting a hit in. And his moves aren’t even fast enough to react to anything, so I have to be calling out my opponent’s habits. I have to wait on the opponent to approach before I throw out even his fastest attacks.
I don’t think I’m going to become a Ganondorf main, but I guess the record indicates I at least need to give it a try. Maybe after I’ve tried every character (which will be a long time since I’ve only tried out 24 so far) I’ll give the ones I had the best online record with another one day tryout. And the ones that do the best there I’ll try out as a main.
Next week Min-Min releases! I expect that to be the whole blog post next week.