Current Events > Who's the worst implemented character in Smash, in your opinion?

(+) Yeah! (+)

For my money, it's Sonic by far.

1. He's got two specials that are really similar. Even the start up is hard to tell at a glance and need different reactions
2. His normals are a mix of "I do an awkward spin" and "I do awkward punches and kicks."
3. He's always been a lame character to fight, but especially so in high-latency Ultimate.
4. He was a last minute addition to Brawl and had a rushed moveset because of it, but they never went back and updated it.
5. He has never really "felt" like his source material. Sonic actually takes a fair amount of momentum to get going, but then is hard to stop once he's moving. In Smash he just ZOOMS.
6. Speaking of which, he barely takes enough of his source material. He's very loosely inspired by 2D Sonic games, plus the homing attack. Where's the bounce or light dash? They could probably give him some newer moves, too, like a sword or werehog, but that wouldn't be received so well.

There's some other characters I think have a consistently poor implementation (Kirby, Little Mac, Ganondorf, Zelda), or a weird one that ends up working (Link, DK, Luigi), but Sonic is easily the worst IMO.

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Sonic is alright where he is at. They even made him a competitive upper high tier in Smash 4 and Ultimate so you Sonic fanboys have no real right to complain. Anyway, the worst implemented character in Smash Bros. is easily Ganondorf bar none. Started out as a clone, was mostly decloned finally in Ultimate, but his moveset has been pretty unfaithful in every game he's been in and he's been bottom tier in almost every single Smash Bros. game except Melee.

I don't mean how well balanced a character is, but how they're designed. The fact that Sonic is good really makes him all the worse because his playstyle often devolves into hit-n-run or just plain runaway, as a character that's super fast with no projectiles. I actually think it's bad for the game for Sonic to be good (Little Mac or Isabelle are other characters I'd say share this trait). But the fact that his moves are so generic just screams for a redesign.

The same is true of Kirby. Almost all of Kirby's normals are generic moves from SSB64, which was also the only game where he was allowed to be good. He's been trash in almost every game since. He's a close range fighter with low mobility, no way to get in, and often pretty poor recovery for someone with multiple jumps. He's pure newb bait thanks to his down-B. Give him more copied abilities from his games and make him more interesting.

Ganondorf also has a lot of bad aspects. He's a clone with a pretty weak moveset. But, he's a very popular character because more likes fair and dair both feel and actually are very strong. There's probably room to change him, especially his uair, usmash, and up+B, without removing the core of his gameplay. He's a character who is bad because his archetype is bad in Smash, but he can be balanced to be a little better without being broken. His issues are in design, not really gameplay (just give him a real recovery).

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sonic, little mac, hero, banjo are up there

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Wolf was pretty bad in Brawl.

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Ness using Paula and Poo's moves really bugs me

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Brawl Ganondorf

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Melee Kirby has throws that can outright kill himself at the ledge while allowing the opponent to harmlessly break free on stage

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Honestly, I think they really messed up with Kirby this time around. I mean him in every Smash Brothers game since the very first on Nintendo 64, and he just isn't right in Ultimate

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LordYeezus posted...

Brawl Ganondorf

Honestly, Ganondorf in general; his moveset has so little to do with what he does in Zelda games

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Antifar posted...

Honestly, Ganondorf in general; his moveset has so little to do with what he does in Zelda games

As far as I can tell, Jigglypuff can't actually fly like that in the actual Pokemon games or anime. Pretty sure the only reason Jigglypuff does that in the game is because she was originally basically a retool of Kirby

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ChocoboMog123 posted...

I don't mean how well balanced a character is, but how they're designed. The fact that Sonic is good really makes him all the worse because his playstyle often devolves into hit-n-run or just plain runaway, as a character that's super fast with no projectiles. I actually think it's bad for the game for Sonic to be good (Little Mac or Isabelle are other characters I'd say share this trait). But the fact that his moves are so generic just screams for a redesign.

The same is true of Kirby. Almost all of Kirby's normals are generic moves from SSB64, which was also the only game where he was allowed to be good. He's been trash in almost every game since. He's a close range fighter with low mobility, no way to get in, and often pretty poor recovery for someone with multiple jumps. He's pure newb bait thanks to his down-B. Give him more copied abilities from his games and make him more interesting.

Ganondorf also has a lot of bad aspects. He's a clone with a pretty weak moveset. But, he's a very popular character because more likes fair and dair both feel and actually are very strong. There's probably room to change him, especially his uair, usmash, and up+B, without removing the core of his gameplay. He's a character who is bad because his archetype is bad in Smash, but he can be balanced to be a little better without being broken. His issues are in design, not really gameplay (just give him a real recovery).

Hit and run and keep away until the right moment is literally how Sonic fights bosses in his games. It makes sense.

Him having two Spin Dashes as special moves in Brawl always rubbed me wrong. I remember when his moves were first announced, months before the game came out: https://www.smashbros.com/wii/en_us/characters/sonic.html

People were going, "Uh, is it just me or does he have two moves that are basically the same?" The fact they never fixed this for any of the sequels is ridiculous. Honestly, Sonic already a had Smash Bros-esque game called Sonic Battle years before Brawl. Why couldn't they have made the Sonic Wave his forward+B in Brawl instead of literally giving us two Spin Dashes?
https://imgur.com/8UghIHl

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I also don't like how Luigi's down+B remained the Luigi Tornado after Mario's down+B was turned into his water gun from Mario Sunshine; I would have preferred it if Luigi's down+B became his vacuum cleaner from Luigi's Mansion. While Mario's water gun pushes opponents back, Luigi's vacuum cleaner would push them towards him; it's the perfect foil for the two brothers.

Yes I know this is all minor shit that doesn't actually change the games much at all. But these are such logical nuances that any creative mind would have implemented them.

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DarkRoast posted...

Honestly, I think they really messed up with Kirby this time around. I mean him in every Smash Brothers game since the very first on Nintendo 64, and he just isn't right in Ultimate

Kirby is alright in Ultimate, it's just that since character mobility is increased he tends to struggle more due to having normal non disjoint attack range and mainly because of his poor horizontal air speed.

Scotty_Rogers posted...

I also don't like how Luigi's down+B remained the Luigi Tornado after Mario's down+B was turned into his water gun from Mario Sunshine; I would have preferred it if Luigi's down+B became his vacuum cleaner from Luigi's Mansion. While Mario's water gun pushes opponents back, Luigi's vacuum cleaner would push them towards him; it's the perfect foil for the two brothers.

Yes I know this is all minor shit that doesn't actually change the games much at all. But these are such logical nuances that any creative mind would have implemented them.

I didn't like that either until I realized Mario still has Mario Tornado, even though it doesn't have any special properties, it's just his dair.

Jigglypuff.

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Not liking a characters playstyle like sonic is just that, and doesn't mean it's actually bad. He plays exactly as you'd expect him to fight. Utilizing his speed and atks to confuse and run circles around the enemy, pressure them, force to make a mistake and then capitalize on said mistakes.

Which he does regularly in the comics and animated shows.

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My only problem with Sonic in Smash is that he literally has two Spin Dashes lol omg couldn't they have come up with something else. Even him just throwing a dummy ring to hit his opponent would have been better than another Spin Dash

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Sora seems like a Marvel character that they forgot to adapt to smash tbh

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Smash 4 Falco was not functional as a character. He stands out because he was consistently a great-but-not-quite-top character and then they broke his kneecaps in that game. Ganon and Jiggs were already bad in Brawl and faced similar issues in Smash 4, but Falco was a very functional character in Brawl after his decloning from Melee, and they took everything that made him good and tore it down.

It might not be quite as easy to tell in the final patch of the game, but in 1.0 he was essentially unfinished. Attacks like his neutral air didn't autolink like in the final version. His blaster was somehow even slower; IMO it was undisputably the worst projectile in the game and it may still be in the final version. In earlier games, his laser was core to his approach and compensated for his greatly reduced speed compared to Fox. In 4, pressing B auto-loses neutral.

They also severely nerfed the practicality of his down air; yeah it was the best spike in the series, but Falco's biggest weakness has always been his killing game, and in 4 they took what may be his best kill option and didn't give him anything back to compensate. His back air was frame 4, which is great on paper, but his really bad shorthop means that he actually whiffs the move from the ground. His jab combo didn't link correctly for some reason.


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viewmaster_pi posted...

hero, banjo

wut? Hero plays like an RPG. The random crit system is kinda fucked up, but otherwise he's a cool dude and fun addition. "Sword fighter with projectiles" is actually a role Smash is lacking in and he fills it better than others.
Banjo is one of the best designed characters of all. His animations are beautiful. He does everything you'd expect him to do and more. The only changes I'd immediately consider buffing his eggs and changing his grenades.

Number090684 posted...

Hit and run and keep away until the right moment is literally how Sonic fights bosses in his games. It makes sense.

In Sonic games you wait for an opening and take it. In Smash, the other player waits for Sonic to be open and otherwise runs away or chases depending on who's more damaged. In Ultimate, with input lag and online latency, you get unreactable attacks and dirty 50/50s. When a fast character's gameplan is to run down the clock, there's probably an issue. He really encourages the Sonic player to interact as little as possible, spam specials, and generally create very repetitive gameplay.
Here's a video from an online tournament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2qcOEafPqA
When there's no reason to approach a character and no reason for them to approach you, there's an issue in gameplay. Same for Puff in Melee, Meta Knight in Brawl, and Little Mac in everything. The thing about Sonic is that his kit is suffering from rushed design in Brawl. So he has balance problems, design problems in terms of gameplay, and design problems in terms of his character. Give him a little more start up on his dash, give him bounce, remove one spin dash, and give him a little more end lag and he'd be fine.

Prismsblade posted...

Not liking a characters playstyle like sonic is just that, and doesn't mean it's actually bad. He plays exactly as you'd expect him to fight. Utilizing his speed and atks to confuse and run circles around the enemy, pressure them, force to make a mistake and then capitalize on said mistakes.

Which he does regularly in the comics and animated shows.

I don't think his personality is to run away for 6 minutes, 5 fights in a row. There's ways to give him a hectic speedy playstyle without sacrificing gameplay.

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Prismsblade posted...

Utilizing his speed and atks to confuse and run circles around the enemy, pressure them, force to make a mistake and then capitalize on said mistakes.

except this is not how most people play sonic. instead they just camp with him

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I mean if we're talking about a single outing, then Mr Game & Watch from melee is barely finished. his dodge is incredibly short, his shield doesn't actually cover his entire model, his aerials are counted in code as special moves so you can't cancel them like every other character, he's just janky.

still love playing him through the series though

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Before Ultimate, Bowser was so slow, even though he clearly can move at about Mario's speed in most Mario games. Ultimate making him faster and improving some of his hit-boxes made him feel waaaaay better.
I don't like what they're doing with the Fire Emblem characters, but that's mostly the fault of the series for always sticking with "sword lord". Having Chrom AND Lucina especially sucks. Marth and Roy were already there. Ike at least is based on Radiant Dawn Ike: he's this big, heavy tank of a Swordsman who throws out hay-makers. Robin, Corrin, and Byleth are all weak characters (Robin less so, IMO) in their own games (narratively speaking) but they at least bring unique gimmicks to the table.
Of course, if they, for example, remade Blazing Blade, they would probably just replace Chrom with Eliwood, even though Eliwood's whole deal is promoting to being mounted and both Lyn and Hector are right there with much more potential for unique and interesting movesets.
Who am I kidding, Hector would be Ike, but with an axe.

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Isabelle.

Because she's awful.

Scotty_Rogers posted...

Luigi's vacuum cleaner would push them towards him

That's not how you move things toward you.

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