Super Smash Bros Ultimate: Choose Your Character!
Posted on February 25, 2021 Posted by Athena Scalzi 8 Comments
(NOTICE: This post assumes that you have played Super Smash Bros Ultimate or are at least up on the gameplay and characters.)
I used to hate Super Smash Bros Ultimate. In fact, I used to hate all Smash games. This was due to me only playing them one time, losing super badly because no one told me the controls, and then me rage quitting and vowing to never play again.
Fast forward a few years to 2019, when I discovered I loved Smash Ultimate after someone actually took time to teach me how to play instead of just beating the shit out of me while I button mashed and prayed.
Now, I’m totally addicted to Smash. Do I still rage quit? Yes. All the time, actually. But that’s usually only when I try to play online and the lag totally nerfs me. Or maybe I’m just not as good as I think I am.
Today I’m here to talk about my favorite and least favorite characters to play as in Ultimate, and basically just talk about who I main and whatnot. Though I will say my main has changed a lot over the course of the past year or so, and is never really constant, there’s definitely some characters that I can’t seem to stop playing.
First up, my very favorite character, Captain Falcon! He is by far the character I play the most, and also the character I consider myself the most skilled with. I love his character design, and his voice lines are so hilarious. Personally, I’m a big fan of his move set because I’m not really into projectiles, I like to run up and punch people instead, and he’s perfect for that! And what’s more satisfying than landing a Falcon Punch and killing someone? He is also a great character for spiking, which I love to do (though rarely succeed at).
Going along with the in-your-face kind of combat characters, I also like Donkey Kong, Bowser, really any heavy that can just beat the shit out of you. Heavy characters are easiest to learn how to play if you’re just starting out, in my opinion. When I first started playing, I stuck with Bowser as a main for a while. I think they’re especially good to play if, like me, you’re not very good at the game, because they can take a ton of hits before they die.
One more great character that has that same punchy punchy play style is Terry! He’s one of the DLC characters and I’m so happy I bought him because he is so much fun! I play him all the time, especially online.
Moving away from that type of character, let’s look at some characters that are more projectile based. I know I said I’m not the biggest fan of projectiles, but I think that there are some really great characters that have a healthy balance of projectile moves and regular moves.
For example, the Wii Fit Trainer has a move set that is a perfect blend of projectiles, regular attacks, and other special moves (like the healing move). The Wii Fit Trainer was actually the first character I ever played, and I had no idea what I was doing. It was a rough time, and I decided it was a stupid game and that I never wanted to play again. Now, I thoroughly enjoy playing as the Wii Fit Trainer! And I actually feel like I’m pretty good with her.
There is one projectile-based character that comes to mind when I think of characters I DESPISE. And that would be Mega Man. Literally all of his moves except like two are projectiles. He doesn’t even have a normal jab! I hate it. The only thing I hate more than playing as Mega Man is playing against him.
Fighting against characters with projectiles is super annoying. I hate when people just stand all the way across the stage and throw shit at you. There’s no pizzazz in that! Where’s the dramatic Warlock Punch type of flourish?! This is especially true when I play online and all I see is people playing Toon Link/Young Link (I would include regular Link but I have a soft spot for him so I don’t mind playing against him).
Another awful projectile-based character I especially hate fighting against is Snake. I hate playing him, too, but at least that’s better than fighting him. He has the slowest forward smash in the game! Can you believe that?
There are a bunch of characters I don’t particularly like simply because I think they’re boring, like Ice Climbers, Duck Hunt, or Olimar. Ice Climbers are literally children and Olimar is very unfun to play as. At least with Ice Climbers one of them can take the hit without taking damage. Same with Rosalina and Luma (another terrible one), if you hit the Luma, Rosalina doesn’t take damage.
There’s are also a lot of characters I’m indifferent about, like Robin, Inkling, Bayonetta, Ken/Ryu, Simon/Richter, Sheik, Shulk, R.O.B., these are all characters that could just not be in the game and I wouldn’t even notice. They’re fine to play as, I have no qualms with them, they’re just not memorable in any way to me. Especially since half of them are echo characters anyways (which just means they have pretty much the exact same move set as a different character).
I really want to talk about the DLC characters! I know I mentioned earlier that Terry is a great one, but honestly there isn’t a single DLC character I don’t like! Except Steve. But we’ll get to that.
One of my favorites of the DLC characters is Hero, despite my usual hatred of projectile-based characters. Hero is just so unique, and has sooo many different spells you can fuck people up with! I think the whole using mana thing is so cool, even if sometimes I get killed by not having enough mana to recover with. It’s interesting to me that they found a way to put a cap on Hero’s insane powers. Hero is a character that takes a lot of thought to use (or at least, use correctly).
Another of my favorites is Joker! I just love his character design; plus when he gets his persona, Arsène, his attacks are stronger, which I think is a really neat addition to his character. He’s fast, light, and tons of fun to play as. I’ve never played Persona 5, but I’ve seen gameplay of it and it seems interesting.
I know everyone hated the fact that Byleth got announced as a DLC character, but I kind of like Byleth! Definitely not my favorite DLC character, and certainly not my favorite Fire Emblem character in the game, but I like him. Out of all the Fire Emblem characters in the game (there’s a lot), I probably like Marth the best (even though Lucina is basically a better Marth). Byleth is cool, though, because he has the strongest down air in the game (even if it is incredibly fucking slow).
Banjo and Kazooie is another one of those rare characters that has two characters as one, like Ice Climbers or Rosalina and Luma, but unlike those two, Banjo and Kazooie cannot be separated, and you can’t hit one without both taking damage. I don’t play them often enough to have too much of an opinion on them, and same goes for Min Min, but they both seem fine. I think Min Min has a cool design, at least.
Now we get to one of the greatest DLC characters ever, Sephiroth. I am totally in love with Sephiroth, so my opinion of him in Smash is completely biased. I think he is so cool and has an awesome move set and I love his sword and his hair and ugh, I adore him. Bias aside, I really do think his moves are cool, and he is definitely fun to play as, plus his stage, music, and win screen are amazing! If you haven’t seen his announcement trailer before, you should totally check it out:
He’s just… so pretty.
Up next is the real MVP, Piranha Plant. This is the most underrated DLC character of all! You literally play as a potted plant! That’s so fucking cool. Not to mention Piranha Plant has an amazing recovery, and is just a ton of fun all around. You’ve got poison breath and fire breath! What more do you need?
Okay, so, let’s talk about Steve. I cannot figure out for the life of me how to play him, and at this point, I just don’t even want to bother. You have to mine the stage for materials to make better weapons to fight with! That’s so ridiculous to me. don’t like Steve and I think he’s a poor addition to Smash. There, I said it.
You know who we really need in Smash, though? Doom Guy. That’s right, the most ruthless, brutal, demon-slaying bitch out there. He would absolutely rock the Smash world. Yes, I did get the idea put in my head from memes, but the memes were right! He does belong in it. And maybe Dr. Samuel Hayden, too, while we’re at it.
Anyways, yeah. I have a lot of characters I like, and a lot I don’t like. Some I love, and some I hate. But isn’t that how it goes with all video games ever?
If you play Smash Ultimate, tell me who your favorites are! Do you agree with my picks? Is there a Smash game you like more than Ultimate? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
Huh. I always thought of Byleth as canonically female. Do they at least allow female Byleth as an alternate skin?
I’ll admit I haven’t played a smash for a long, long time, but I used to love Jigglypuff. Folks would hit you with a solid hit, you’d go rocketing off the screen, and then slowly float back into the play area. Extremely frustrating, and frustrated people leave openings.
TF2 and Halo characters should be added!
Bayonetta is awesome, but part of that is the nostalgia of playing the original game. Note, her costume is actually her hair wrapped around her. XD
Also, the hair punch and hair dragon are awesome.
I’m also partial to characters with swords because I love swords. Note, I’m not very good at the game. XD
Steve and Alex were fun additions for me because I love minecraft. Once you get the basics down of mining, finding and making a diamond sword is almost OP.
And, that’s why there is such a variety of characters. There’s something for everyone. :)
I don’t play much myself because I’m just not really that good at fighting games. But I’ll play sometimes with my son, who LOVES the game. I just go with characters I know, which means Link or Samus or Pokemon, and then get my butt kicked.
We tend not to do a lot of DLC with games in general, but literally our entire house loves Persona 5, so we did approve that purchase, and I have to say I love watching those fights just for the aesthetics. All the visuals from the source game (and P4 as well!) I find absolutely delightful, like the all-out attack when you land a good combo. Also Kirby eating Joker is completely ridiculous and I love it.
@Emily Riposte – All of the Fire Emblem MCs have both male and female skins, each one defaults either male or female but you’re just a button press away from your “correct” one.
I am very much not up to date with the Smash DLC; the last one I used was Corrine. In terms of my general go to it’s either Samus or Ganondorf. Samus was my main back in the original Smash, and she’s always my safe choice. Ganondorf I grew to enjoy in Melee due to being a much heavier hitting Falcon, and the fact he only needs to land a couple of good solid hits is fantastic.
I’m with you on disliking playing Mega Man. While I don’t have any problems with the existence of his moveset his entire kit just doesn’t feel right to me, so I never feel like he’s responding the way I want.
“Show me your moves!”
Pink Falcon is best Falcon. (I may have been playing Falcon since the original Smash Bros.)
I could go on, but it’s time for…
FALCONNNNN LUNCH!
I will definitely recommend Persona 5 to you – like all the Persona games, it’s a combination of a time-management game, a friendship/dating sim, and a turn-based dungeon crawler. The aim is to do well in the time management side of things, so you can level up your relationships in the friendship/dating sim component, to get the boosts and buffs for the dungeon crawler. This is all embedded in a rather interesting story line, and there’s a number of difficulty options (starting with “Safe Mode”, where the combat is much more straightforward, and where the focus is much more on enjoying the story than on winning battles; right up to the (downloadable) Nightmare mode, where the combat is downright vicious, and losing the game early is easy). I’d certainly recommend it to anyone who enjoys JRPGs, as well as to people who (like me) aren’t that great with the twitch reflexes – turn-based combat is definitely easier to deal with than real-time if this is the case. Plus the sound-track is great and jazzy.
Athena,
Hope it is OK to be off topic — Just wanted to comment on your cooking post:
Joy of Cooking is a great, great cook book, with fundamental instructions on every kind of cooking, with variations. I have learned all sorts of cooking from this book.
Another great cook book is “The Way to Cook” by the great student of French cooking and star of TV cooking shows, Julie Child.
I learned to cook when we had chickens in the yard, laying great eggs with brilliant yellow/gold yolks. I made a lemon merangue pie for a special occasion once. It was beautiful, the top browned beautifully, the filling golden.
But when we tasted it, it was bland sweet nothing. When I went to the kitchen, I saw the measuring cup beside the stove, still full of fresh squeezed lemon juice. It was fed out to the chickens, better luck next time. I have won pie baking contests at summer parties in the distant past, so hang in there.