Hello my name is Tyrell Coleman. I go by NAKAT, I am a professional Super Smash Bros. Brawl player from the NJ/NY region. I main Ice Climbers, Fox, Metaknight, and Wario. I am a huge Smash enthusiast and I am in love with every iteration of the game, including the highly anticipated Smash 4! Here are my Demo impressions!
Controls:
A: Standard Attack
B: Special Moves
X/Y: Jump
R: Shield
L: Grab
D-Pad- Taunts
Circle Pad: Move
Tap-Jump is on
Characters
Mario:
Mario can combo out of his dthrow. He can dthrow and follow up with the following (percents vary) Dsmash, usmash, fsmash, bair, fair, uair, utilt, ftilt.
Down throw->Jab->Dtilt->Uair
Mario’s down throw can kill at high percents when you do it at the ledge and then fair!
Mario’s dair is his best combo started next to dthrow. It leads to all of his other aerials that can be stringed together.
Dtilt->Fsmash is a great tool for KOing
Mario’s flood is a lot sharper! It has more knockback!
Dair is an optimal approach! It sets up for many of his other aerials!
This is the best Mario has been in any iteration of class. He is a very solid character this time around with a lot of combo potential. He is a very combo heavy character, but suffers from the ability to be camped. His recovery is a bit better in a sense that the new ledge mechanics play into his favor. However, if he is knocked far away enough he can’t use his cape to help him because it does not help him rise as much like it did in Brawl. So his recovery is hit or miss at this point. It is still much better than just being plain useless like in Brawl. I am loving this character so much. Be sure to scream Lebron when you dthrow to fair somone for the kill at the ledge!
Villager:
Fsmash is a strongggggggggggggggggggg, very strong kill move! Great for edge guarding too! However, it is very slow and does not have a lot of horizontal range. At first I thought it would be impossible to land it. but….
Villagers dash attack is the perfect setup into Fsmash for a kill.
Dsmash foes at high percents to plant them and then fsmash them for a kill. The move can kill at around 70%!
Villagers Up B is insane. It might be the best recovery I have seen in any Smash game.
Villagers side b is very strong as a recovery option too!
POCKET CAN GRAB MEGAMANS Uair, Fsmash, and just about any projectile!
POCKET GRABS PIKACHU’S DOWN B!!!!!!
Fair and bair are good edgeguarding tools! They have great knockback at high percents!
Dtilt combos into fair and potentially usmash! It is also a very good move to escape sticky situations! Getting pressured? Dtilt to quickly knock them up and away!
Villagers Down B is very situational. I feel as though it will be used for edgeguarding and in teams where there will be more opportunities to catch people. Villager is able to spawn an item with the tree! When he cuts it down a log appears! You can use that and toss it at enemies for extra damage.
Villager is super fun and a very situational character. I feel like he/she will be a very strong teams character! However I think in singles he will be right in-between good and bad. He has a lot of very good options, but the setups are just not there and require a lot of timing. Look out for this character in teams! Very very scary!
Tree can be pocketed. If you release it say in doubles with another villager they can pocket it making it stronger and this process can continute…leading to……guess we will have to wait and see if you can get demolished by a tree.
Megaman:
Megaman is a very projectile heavy character. He will be very annoying to face in the hands of someone who prefers a more defensive/evasive playstyle. He has a great array of unique moves and his movement is similar to that of Wario’s in my opinion. I think he is a bit better than average, but only time will tell his full potential.
Dthrow leads to fair, nair, and uair.
Uair is very good and I was able to roof a character (Kill them upward repreatedly) with it.
His aerial movement is fast and loopy which is beautiful.
Although he is projectile based his hand to hand combat is solid.
Megamans Fsmash and Dsmash are both very strong!
Usmash is risky because if you miss it leaves you very vulnerable.
Megaman can stall his recovery with Dair.
Fair and Leaf Shield are solid edge guarding options.
The Metal Blade is mediocre in my opinion.
Megaman’s recovery is pretty good
Pikachu:
Pikachu is very strong and still resembles a lot of her Brawl traits! Pikachu is very fast and almost none of her moves have landing lag! This will make Pikachu a popular pick!
Pikachu’s recovery is still very strong
Jab does not have a finisher and with no SDI this means that you can jab infinite anyone against a wall to death! That is very very scary!
Pikachu’s utilt is a very very good move that combos into nair!
Pikachu lost QAC, however he can quick attack edge cancel! (QAEC)
Thunder is clunky with a low hitbox
SH fair and dair have no lag
Bair has a lot of knockback
You can’t quick attack lock anymore
Uthrow is very good!
Dash attack is very strong
Thunder Jolts seem a lot weaker
Pikachu has a lot of control over characters who are trying to recover
Uair can only combo into Uair at high percents
Pikachu gets a nair after a footstool
Thunder (Down+B) spikes and leads into combos if they do not tech.
No weak hitbox on Pikachu’s Fsmash
Link:
Link is disappointing as usual. Sorry to break it to many people, but I was not impressed with link. His aerials all feel the same, and he has that same slow feel to him. He just can’t catch a break from Sakurai! However….I do think this is way better than Smash 64/Brawl Link.
Link’s usmash can Kill!
Link’s dtilt spikes
Link’s boomerang has the wind effect when it is returning to him.
Link’s ftilt has a lot of Knockback!
Link’s dair spikes on startup!
Zair makes no landing lag!
Up’B is a little bit better
The ledge mechanics also help Link out a lot
Game Mechanics:
Insta-Tossing is Back!
The games engine is very smooth and feels so crisp!
Aerial/Landing/Airdodge lag is NOT bad at all. I feel people exagerrated it hard. Some moves lagged for literally half a second.
Airdodging at the peak of your double jump or anywhere high on the stage will NOT give you landing lag! There are methods to have no lag after you attack or airdodge.
You can airdodge very quickly after the first one over and over!
The ledge is a lot different. Depending on how far away you begin your dash from a ledge is how you will react to the ledge when you approach it. Say I begin my dash from one ledge to another…if I dash off the ledge I will go into a tumbling animation. Now say I start my dash a little more than hlafway through the stage near the ledge. Instead of going into a tumbling animation I will instantly drop down. If I stand on the ledge and begin a dash off that same ledge I will instantly fall down. Every now and then when I ran off the ledge it forced me to jump off, but I don’t know why yet.
When you grab the ledge for the first time you will be invincible. After that you lose all invincibility! Say goodbye to planking!
This game feels like a very polished version of Brawl with Melee esque qualities added.
Edgeguarding and Edgehogging still exist. However they will take a lot more skill and time to figure out how to do them appropriately. Pikachu/Mario were the strongest at it in the demo.
Staling is a lot more harsh this time around.
Ledge Snaps are similar to Brawl
Jab canceling seems to be gone.
Shields are similar to brawl, but it’s a bit harder to shield grab someone.
Shield depletes a bit quicker
Chaingrabbing is not possible because after you initiate a throw your opponent can’t be re grabbed for like a second and a half
The new ledge makes edgeguarding feel like a mixture between Melee & Brawl!
Conclusion?
I believe that this is an amazing Smash game! It blew my expectations and I am so enthused for the future of this game! It caters to almost any smash player and this next chapter of smash is going to be a very intersting one. Everyone buy this game and show support to the developer. This was a great demo and I am so happy I had the opportunity to get my hands on it!
Remember this is all my opinion. Someone may have found Link to be a lot stronger and I am subject to being I correct!
Absolutely disagree with Link. Going by what I saw in Zeros video on him, he looks AMAZING. Boomerang combos into kill move, super fast bair and nair that both have no landing lag, and still his great camping game. He looks really solid in this game, no idea why you think he “sucks, as usual”. Other than that I agree with pretty much everything, Mario and Pikachu are beasts, Villager will dominate the doubles meta game, and Megaman.. we’ll see about him.
Thanks Albert. I agree I am uneducated on Link. Post info about him guys. I played him the least.
Btw Pikachu is a male. Late night typos xD
Nice. I’m a Link main and there are a lot of slight buffs that wouldn’t initially be noticeable by people who don’t study Link. But the rest sounds interesting. Question: you say CG’s are impossible because of the grab delay, so I was wondering if it was like that for every character?