LogFAQs > #967602361

Shulk - Xenoblade Chronicles (original Wii version)
The Definitive Edition gets bonus points for being HD, but I honestly have never liked the art style for Shulk's face in it. Wii Shulk has the fidelity of an early PS2 character model, but at the same time he has more personality, looking more like the nerd he is rather than a stereotypical JRPG main character. This is overall a small thing. but Shulk is one of my favorite game characters so I reserve the right to be picky.

In either version of the game though, he's fantastic. Shulk is a perfect example of how to make a likable JRPG protagonist. He's smart, empathetic, mature, and has one of the absolute best voice acting performances I've heard in any game. If every JRPG protagonist was as good as Shulk, I think the genre as a whole would have a better reputation than it does. It's a shame that Adam Howden hasn't been able to fully replicate the Shulk voice since; his VA in Xenoblade X, Xenoblade 2, and Smash Ultimate has always felt a little off.

Best Smash Appearance: Ultimate
Shulk was the character I was hyped for in Smash 4. When I finally sat down and got to play him, I was...not quite underwhelmed, but a little confused? For the record, Shulk is one of the most inventive additions to Smash in the last two games. His Monado Arts allowing him to change his movement properties makes him unlike any other character. Despite being a relative unknown at the time, Shulk completely sidestepped the typical Anime Swordsman complaints by being wholly unique.

With that said, I don't think that interpretation is quite accurate. Shulk's gameplay in Xenoblade is only tangentially based on buffs. For the most part, he's a fairly squishy assassin type character who deals out tons of damage and exploits weaknesses while being able to create big shields in a pinch. Smash focused on the few property-changing abilities in Shulk's repertoire and added two Smash-original ones. The end result is probably more unique, but I can't help but feel like this was a Byleth situation, where they wanted to focus more on diversifying their anime swordsman portfolio than being strictly accurate. Which I guess is fair.

A bigger complaint for me is that this is the second time that Sakurai added major character I wanted and made them extremely slow. Shulk has the literal worst frame data in Smash Ultimate, but he's not at all that slow in Xenoblade. Same thing happened to Ike in Brawl, whose highest stat in Path of Radiance is literally Speed. I guess that Sakurai feels more comfortable taking liberties with less-known characters, but the result is me struggling with their frame 10+ options for 14 years.

I've mostly been voicing complaints so far, but when all is said and done, Shulk is fun to play in Smash. Difficult, and kind of awkward sometimes, but the variety of interesting gameplay he offers on a second-to-second basis is crazy high. Smash 4 Shulk would've been score lower due to being bad and the Monado Arts being on such an activation delay, but Ultimate buffed him, adjusted his Monado Arts to be more extreme, and added the instant Monado Art wheel, which finally made him a complete package. I have misgivings about his interpretation, but there's only so low I'm going to score a character that is both fun and unique. B