LogFAQs > #967580767

Alph - Pikmin 3

I have never played Pikmin 3. However, I assume that it is a video game that is enjoyable, as I played both Pikmin 1 and Pikmin 2 and both of those were enjoyable. I also assume Alph has some semblance of character. I am even led to believe that the multi captain set-up of Pikmin 3 allows for clever strategic decision making and care of your Pikmin as you delegate tasks. These things would, with absolute certainty, make Pikmin 3 his best playable appearance.

Best Smash Appearance: None - Alph (and by extension, Olimar) are, by far, my least favorite designs in all of Smash Bros. Not only do I find their implementation bad, not only do I find them frustrating to fight and relatively unfun to play compared to others in their archetype, not only do I find that they betray their personalities, but I think their appearance in Smash has actively damaged the perception and reputation of the Pikmin series. The main conceit of Pikmin is the weight of responsibility - you have to escape a planet or plunder its resources so that you (or you entire colony or planet) dont die/become bankrupt. To do this, you must organize the native Pikmin, glad to follow you, to perform tasks together that they could never accomplish individually. With time, they grow stronger, evolve to grow more capable, can do more tasks, can be delegated to do multiple tasks, and any time that you recklessly toss them at an enemy, it is a disaster. Pikmin need to be ordered around strategically, carefully, and utilize their individual strengths together in order to overcome tasks, or else the crushing weight of dozens of dead Pikmin will haunt Olimar AND have the gameplay repercussion of needing to rebuild your army, something that is a toll on the player in later games and actively wastes a resource that is in short supply in the first.

The Pikmin captains fail spectacularly to convey any of this within Smash Bros. While Pikmin do still flower and bloom, this is such a forgotten mechanic that its basically treated as an easter egg, Pikmin are the most disposable minions possible in Smash, more than Advance Wars soldiers, even more than Luma. They are pitiful projectiles that are made to be distractions to get some extra chip damage, then slain. They are extended hitboxes sent out to die. There is no rhyme or reason for Olimars attacks; there is an optimal Alph playstyle out there, he will be played in that style, and whatever Pikmin you happen to pluck are tools to service that playstyle. The strategic elements of Pikmin - the stage control that they could very easily provide, Hell, that Snake can do with one button and zero thought - are entirely eliminated, the strategic elements have been greatly simplified with the Pikmins numerical reduction since Brawl (which, to be fair, the strategy was have six), there is no weight to a lost Pikmin as plucking one takes no time, and I have never met a single person who has been happy fighting Alph or Olimar. These are unfun characters who rely on basic, uninteresting puppets with basic set-ups that have no strong hook to allure new players, and also lack the depth of other characters with similar mechanics. Alph is perhaps one of the most shafted characters in all of Smash, joining as an alternate skin to a character who had, for the past decade, been best represented by watching Captain Falcon kill all his friends and being okay with it because he was losing against that Giant ROB anyway. Alph was not just dead on arrival, he was rotting. Gut it, burn it, leave nothing, and remake it anew. F