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Friday 12 January, 2007
Round 2.
SSBM is a multiplayer that is very easy to pick up for beginners. One can learn the controls easily in about a couple minutes or so and dive into the action. Getting used to running, jumping, blocking, and dodging can easily be picked up as well. However over the years of this game being out, many players around the world, have discovered many other techniques that make this game "...hard to master"
Every time I play this game I come across new moves and strategies to combat other characters. Unlike many fighting games, this one is unique in its sense that all characters have not only their own special moves, but physical attributes as well. From experience, I have come across differences in weight, speed, and jumping in every character. An easy example of this is the Light and quick Pikachu versus the slow and bulky Bowser. The way each character varies with attributes gives balance to the game and makes them unique.
Weight effects how fast you fall when your knocked away and falling down. It also effects how easy it is for an opponent to juggle you(linking attacks to form combos to build up opponents’ percentile). Speed obviously determines how fast you run across the screen while jumping effects how high you can jump. When you pick a character, these stats don't show up when you put your cursor on them. However, once you play different characters, you will quickly notice how different characters vary from one another.
SSBM is all about adapting. With many stages, characters, items, and play styles, you have to always think of a plan of attack on the move. This is what can make the game hard to master. Levels vary from flat planes to heavy platform jumping which can be good and bad for the way you play. Either way you have to adjust to your surroundings while utilizing your skills and items(if you have the option on) on the battlefield. Items can effect the battle a lot of times as well. Some weapons will do more damage then normal attacks and after pulling off a combo you can throw them(just like any item) at your opponent for even more damage. Some items like Mr. Saturn are weak and are just useful to be thrown. Others like food and hearts will lower your percent. One of the many favorites is the old baseball bat that will knock an opponent off in one hit, if you can connect with it.
As a Sheik player, my main focus in battles is combos. I'm having a good day if I can catch any of my opponents off guard at low percents, and take them past 70+% with one combo alone making them almost close to be knocked off. With smart players my strings get cut short a lot. Another thing that foils my plans is when players interfere with me and another person fighting. I will forever be trying to forget the way of fighting many people at once. No matter how nimble Sheik with her fast attacks and above average speed can be at times, the minute she gets hit, things can turn bad quick. I was experiencing this a lot today when trying to get back into playing again.
Tuan as usual chose Samus while Mike continued to cook his boiled eggs with Yoshi. It wouldn't matter what stage we would choose. I would chase after Yoshi and would miss it many times only to get a big reward of a huge charged beam from Samus, to the face. I despise Samus. I'm still trying to figure out ways to beat that girl ha-ha. Not only is she hard to combo since she is so light, but also she finds many ways to escape which end up with me running into an exploding bomb. However over time I began to notice that she sometimes has just as much problem with crowd control as me so...this is where Yoshi comes in. Sometimes I would engage Yoshi only to slowly lure it towards Samus in which I would even flee from the seen, having them duke it out for a good minute or so. Call it an act of cowardice but it would work very nicely. Even if both would catch on to what I was doing and try to follow me, having Samus running around is way better than letting her sit around from afar and shooting her big beams. The key was to let the two beat each other up a little so they become easy to knock back leaving a me with more time to focus on one enemy at a time. In most instances, I would try to eliminate Samus first due to the fact that she honestly annoys me the most. This leaves the tricky Yoshi left for tough battles. Kick straight, Yoshi rolls around. Break dance kick, Yoshi still rolls around. It was obvious I would have to rethink how I fight against this creature. The way Mike plays Yoshi, seems like he jumps in low with a quick poke kick to get a upper hand and ready for combo position. These little pokes that he would start with are what I decided to do as well. Instead of trying to stand and attack from every angle, I instead started moving around a whole a lot more to try and keep him guessing of where I am going to begin my attack. Sometimes he would charge to me and I'll start running away myself but instantly come back with a quick tap back to his direction. Sometimes I would repeat this over and over to confuse him and even Samus. This is one of my favorite moves which is called Wavedancing. It's pretty easy to pick up and use. It's great sometimes in faking out the enemy however today, Yoshi still was able to pick up on it and still poke me early enough to get a upper hand. I started landing a couple combos and even winning a couple matches towards the end of my session but Yoshi still continued to dominate most of the games. Mike switched to Mario and I had better luck against him sometimes then Yoshi. I remember one match on Corneria I was able to pull off a very nice combo by jumping in with a kick, followed by a down grab, 2 kick juggles, with another down grab, one more kick and a ending with my famous aerial spike. I won that match only to lose the next couple matches ha-ha.
All in all, I had a very fun time picking this fighter up again. There is always something new to learn, and techniques to master. I know I still have a while before I can be at a level Mike is at but I one day I will. I just hope that with the new SSBM Brawl that’s coming for the Wii, Nintendo keeps that character balance still all the characters. The game play balance and ever changing levels will always have players coming back for more.
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